by Kyle Mata
“That is enough, Commander Winchester.” Beeping began on all three bridges, indicating a fleet-wide message.
“That will be the Admiral, standby for orders. Reichert out.”
“Battle group two standing by. Olds out.”
“Battle group three standing by. Winchester out.”
Thomas and his crew watched as the massive Leviathan-class Mega-Cruiser NRS Osiris exited her warp-jump in the middle of the three battle groups, officially making it the Second fleet. Admiral Tavington appeared on screen; he was a tall, tough looking, elderly man. His hair was mostly gray with a few dashes of black, indicating its color in his younger years. The right side of his face was scarred, and he had a cyber optic implant where his right eye used to be.
“All battle groups, this is Admiral Tavington, commanding officer of this Second Fleet. The invasion of RV-100342-324 is a go. Tell your troops to destroy anything on the surface that looks man-made. I expect reports every thirty minutes.”
The screen went blank.
Thomas Winchester felt a rush of adrenaline. He grabbed the ship-wide intercom and barked, “Phase three is a go, barn burn procedures are in effect. I say again—Phase three is a go, barn burn procedures are in effect!”
He watched as a few hundred ships, landing craft, fighters, and bombers, scattered out in tight formations from the fleet down to the planet. He couldn’t help but wonder why three battle groups were required for one colony of Coalition personnel and a potential of one or two mercenaries hired by the Guild. But overkill was generally the Nyrotsi way, and if a numbered admiral was getting involved with the Nomen, then it had to be of high importance.
“Sir, our troops have made landfall. We are about to lose contact, though, due to the ionic clouds.”
“Have one fighter squadron remain just above atmosphere to act as a relay for us.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Sir, initial reports are coming in—our fighters have engaged numerous enemy craft!” One of the intelligence officers interjected.
“Numerous? How many? Are they Coalition?”
“I’m not sure, sir. We lost contact with the fighter squadron that engaged them. Battle group one is reporting that they’ve lost four fighter squadrons and two bomber squadrons already!”
“How can this be?” Thomas mumbled to himself. He felt cold inside, hearing the loss of his men and women as though they were mere chess pieces. But now was no time for feelings.
“Sir, enemies on scope! Several unidentified ships just dropped out of warp, right behind us!”
“Bring the battle group around!” Thomas barked. He pushed a button on his chair to comm the Admiral, but Tavington was already onscreen and issuing orders to the fleet.
“First and second group more to position 180 by 2234 by 6901. Third group form up around the NRS Osiris,” Tavington commanded.
“All forward full,” Thomas called. As the NRS Red Drake came about Thomas beheld a foreign fleet three times the size of the one he was in. Thomas Winchester knew every human and Legnorr ship that ever floated around this galactic cluster, but these ships were of designs he had never seen before. They were very curvy and had a gold color to them; he would study their new designs at length after the battle. The unidentified fleet immediately opened fire on the Second fleet. His ship quaked from the initial impact.
“All batteries, open fire on the nearest hostile vessels. Scramble all remaining fighters and bombers. Tell the group to focus their fire together, and get me a damage report!” Thomas commanded. The ship shook as the missile silos and gun batteries on the frigate returned fire. It was quite a scene to witness as the combined firepower of these two fleets was unleashed upon one another, some smaller ships exploded like fireworks, missiles and armor piercing slugs flew about like shooting stars. “Patch the strategic footage to command. They need to see these ships.”
“Our long-range transmissions are being jammed, sir! Logos…we’re jammed on every frequency!” the comm officer cried. “All we’ve got are tight beam, short range comms.”
“Sir, shields are holding at seventy-nine percent. The Stark Night and Son of Eden are reporting full shield loss…” There was an explosion off the bow as a laser lance virtually sliced a gunboat in half, and the viewscreen darkened a few shades to prevent the crew on the bridge from going blind “…we just lost the Caspian. I’m reading only a few escape pods made it out…” the radar officer reported.
“Who are they?” Thomas asked. “…Use the Hammerheads!” The NRS Red Drake and one of the corvettes, the Sky Bison, fired on an enemy frigate. It exploded as one salvo of Hammerhead missiles wiped out its shields with a splash of shimmering electricity, and the next salvo punctured its hull, causing internal explosions. The enemy ship broke into pieces. Thomas half-expected to hear cheering, but there was none; everyone knew they were losing. At least everybody could now see that this mysterious enemy fleet wasn’t indestructible. “Ensign, spread the word to the rest of the fleet about the Hammerheads.” The battle was practically chaos. From what Thomas saw, the first and second battle groups were chewed to pieces from walls of enemy fire before they could even begin a flanking maneuver. For every enemy ship they took down, the Nyrotsi fleet lost at least five.
The ship shook violently as it took another direct hit. Thomas watched as an enemy projectile exploded off the bow and the shields rippled to dissipate the blast.
“Shields are down to twenty-one percent, Sir!”
“Pull power from rear deflectors and put it toward forward deflectors. Call back our invasion teams—we’re getting out of here,” Thomas Winchester was not afraid, just extremely focused, watching the battle unfold before him, ships exploded all around him. Explosions in space were curious, sort of like what an explosion looks like underwater, but without the bubbles. He couldn’t even bear to think about the death tolls yet.
“Sir… there is no invasion team left to recall.”
“Lieutenant Commander Winchester,” Admiral Tavington interrupted, “have your group press forward and create a corridor for the NRS Osiris while we jump. Once we have cleared, follow us back to Nyrotsi space.”
Is he insane? Logos! The NRS Osiris is probably the only reason we have a fighting chance. If he jumps, there won’t be anything left of my battle group… but the Admiral already knows that. What a way to go.
“Understood, Sir. You heard the man, push forward! Let’s show these dogs what we’re made of!”
The third battle group pressed forward, firing every weapon it had. The Stark Night exploded. The NRS Osiris jumped to warp. A cry came over the battle group three frequency from the commander of the Son of Eden when a doomed enemy cruiser on a suicide run collided with her ship. They both broke in half and exploded.
“Give the order for all non-essential crew to abandon ship,” Winchester said solemnly.
The Sky Bison erupted into a plume of fire before being extinguished by the vacuum of space. The dreaded laser lance sliced the remainder of battle group three to pieces, leaving only the NRS Red Drake. Escape pods began to jettison from the frigate.
“Battle group one, battle group two, do you read? I have lost all ships and will be jumping to warp shortly. Battle group one, battle group two, do you read?”
“Sir, we’re all that’s left.”
The ship was hit again and damage klaxons began to sound, indicating loss of power and atmosphere.
“Sir! Shields are down, we’ve lost primary and secondary power, and hull integrity is at seventy percent!”
“Can we jump?!” Thomas yelled.
“Negative, sir!”
“All crew, abandon ship! At least that thick hull bought us this much time.” The crew sprung from their seats and scrambled for their designated escape pods, all but Lieutenant Commander Thomas Winchester who slowly stood from his command seat and walked up to the pilot’s chair. He looked at the forward viewscreen and witnessed the carnage of the battle. The entirety of Second Fleet, aside from
the NRS Osiris, was in pieces scattered about in orbit over the wretched planet Scorpion.
“Sir, are you coming?” A young intelligence officer with blonde hair containing a rogue black streak, Ensign Madelle, was the only other person on the bridge.
“Go on, I’m going to try to buy the pods some time.” Thomas said clearly. She hesitated. “That’s an order, Ensign.”
She ran off.
Another series of impacts riddled the hull of his frigate. Thomas hadn’t piloted anything since he himself was an Ensign. He pointed the vessel straight at the planet and gave her all the thrust she had left in her. The NRS Red Drake rocketed toward Scorpion and into the ionic atmosphere. He hoped the enemy fleet would give chase.
The incoming fire stopped, not even a single enemy fighter wanted to chase Thomas and his doomed frigate through the ionic atmosphere. Thomas let out a sigh.
The ship broke the cloud layer and Thomas pointed his frigate at a large gray desert. The scene before him would have almost been serene, if not for all the alarm klaxons going off. He saw the smoking remains of what was likely the Coalition colony just north of his intended landing zone. He put the ship into a nose up attitude to try to bleed off some airspeed, just as he was taught at the academy, then he flipped on whatever airbrakes hadn’t been shot off and went into full reverse thrust. He was still traveling entirely too fast, and he knew it.
I never did like this ship.
The NRS Red Drake impacted the planet Scorpion.
CHAPTER 3
THE DEFENDER
By the time Karr had the settlement in sight, it was really just a smoldering heap. The electro-web was completely destroyed, and he couldn’t make out a single building still standing. The Rae forces had engaged the Nyrotsi Nightfang just outside the colony, and the Nightfang were losing—badly. Despite their use of projectile weapons and armor, the Rakju had superior numbers and a clear lack of pain and fear. Karr watched as a flame trooper lit up a pair of Rakju with his flamespitter. Engulfed in flames, the Rakju continued to overpower the trooper until, finally, the trooper’s fuel pack was ignited and exploded, killing the trooper and both Rakju. Karr did not break stride and ran through the battle. He watched as a Sserten beast sprayed fluid and dissolved three Nightfang soldiers down to their boots. The other head of the same Sserten was chomping on a soldier’s midsection. Karr made sure his helmet cam recorded it all.
The Shadowri was unsure of who to help. In his experience, the Nyrotsi had always been his enemy, but these Rae stood against all of humanity. Karr continued to run and made his decision. He took shots with his MAGE rifle, dropping Rakju as he went. A few Nyrotsi soldiers shot at Karr, but the rounds pinged harmlessly off his armor. He chalked up the ‘friendly fire’ as confusion during the fray and ignored them. There hadn’t been a serious conflict for the Nyrotsi in a few years, maybe these guys were still rookies. A pair of Nyrotsi hover tanks grumbled over a gray dune, and opposite the tanks was the Rae, the head of a cat, wielding a glowing scythe. A pair of Nightfang troopers fired on the alien, but their rounds were absorbed into some sort of energy shield. He cut them cleanly in half and headed toward the tanks. Karr nearly stopped to engage the Rae, merely out of Shadowri battle-pride, to battle the strongest enemy on the field, but figured the ancestral desire was contradictory to his mission at this time and continued his run. He had a feeling there would be plenty of Rae for him to face off with in the future. The cat head Rae sliced through two units of Nightfang with ease before beginning to cut the mighty hover tanks to ribbons.
The Shadowri Commando made it to the devastated colony and began searching for survivors. It was a quick search; by the looks of the damage, the Nyrotsi did not even land a shot inside the compound before the Rae forces arrived. The second attack on the colony seemed to have killed everyone who survived the initial attack that Karr had ended. He tried to comm Daena, it buzzed several times with no response. Karr, figuring the worst, decided he would head back to the forest and lay low until the Guild came to retrieve him.
“Karr?” Daena coughed into the comm device.
“Where are you?” Karr replied quickly.
“I’m trapped under a collapsed building. Traylor was with me, but I’m not sure where he is now.” Karr switched his HUD to X-Ray layered with infrared and adjusted the depth to the system’s absolute maximum: three meters. He found only one heat signature among all the wreckage.
“It wasn’t even the Nyrotsi who hit us.” The line clicked off.
He ran over to the building and began tossing chunks of metal and metaplastic aside with assistance from his powered armor. Pinned beneath a large metal girder was Daena. Her light Defender armor kept her in one piece, but she would have likely suffocated had the Commando not made it to her. Karr picked her up gingerly, paying special attention to her head and torso in case she had a spine injury or broken ribs. As he picked her up, he noticed Traylor, dead, not even a meter away from where she was trapped. The built-in sensors in Karr’s armor ran diagnostics on Daena while he carried her further away from the battle, which, by the sounds of the screams, the Nyrotsi were still losing. When Daena came to, Karr had made it to the tree line; she looked up at the armored man carrying her and smiled weakly. “Picking me up for our second date?” Karr just continued on into the denser part of the forest. His HUD concluded that aside from minor lacerations and contusions, she was okay now that she had oxygen.
Karr found a safe area amongst the thick scorpion trees where he decided to set up camp. He used his katana to take down a few trees and took a lap around the perimeter to ensure they were alone while Daena made up a fire.
“This scorpion tree bark is bullet proof, but it burns real well,” she remarked as the first sun dipped below the horizon. There were only thirteen-hour days on Scorpion.
“It is unaffected by the liquid the Sserten spit as well,” Karr said matter-of-factly as he lifted a pair of fallen trees with relative ease.
“Wait, what did you call it?”
“A Sserten, the six-legged… oh… I—uh,” Karr started to say. “I spied on their compound.” Karr removed his helmet. Daena gave him an intrigued smirk, but Karr pretended he didn’t notice her reaction and told her the story about the Rae.
“We have to tell someone,” she said but she noticed that Karr’s attention was on the sky. There were streaks of light falling from orbit. “Meteor shower?” She asked him.
“No. Escape pods.” They watched as dozens of escape pods fell from space. As the second sun set, they could see an entire space battle raging in the heavens. Karr put his helmet back on and used his HUD magnification to zoom into the sky, allowing him to see the battle with as much clarity as the ionic clouds would allow. It seemed like a Nyrotsi fleet was engaged with an unknown enemy, likely the Rae.
“A Rae fleet is beating the Nyrotsi fleet pretty badly,” Karr explained to Daena.
“I’m not sure who I should be rooting for,” Daena replied.
As she spoke, a massive ship broke the cloud layer and was hurling toward the desert where the land battle was. It was a Nyrotsi Ripper-class frigate.
“I have not seen a Ripper-class frigate since I boarded a couple during the Zebra Nebula War,” Karr said as he watched it fly low over their heads.
“You—what? How old are you?” Daena asked.
“Twenty-four, how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-seven… wait, what?” She said, moving her gaze from the frigate down to the Commando as if he were the most puzzling thing on the planet now.
“What?” Karr didn’t understand her confusion and continued to watch the frigate. It impacted the desert and shook the entire planet for a moment. They both stood in silence and watched as a pillar of smoke and dust was kicked into the air.
“The Zebra Nebula war that ended ten years ago… you were, logos, fourteen when you were raiding battlecruisers?”
“No,” Karr answered flatly. Daena took a sigh of relief, thinking how insane it would have
been for a fourteen-year-old to be in combat. “I was raiding frigates and other smaller ships when I was fourteen. I didn’t board a battlecruiser until the Outer Belt War,” Karr finished.
Daena sat down, her mind spinning as she tried to understand that this guy fought in space battles while she was still in primary school. “Logos…” she muttered under her breath again.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
“Yes, I’m okay, just sort of shocked. I’ve heard tall tales about the Shadowri before, but I guess I never really believed them before I met you.”
Karr stood in silence for a moment. He could assess and assign target priority in a room full of hostiles immediately, as he could calculate threat level in a matter of nanoseconds. But basic conversation was never one of his stronger suits; he tended to be more of a lone wolf with just his carties for company. He deduced it was a matter of where he focused his energies and time.
He finally spoke. “I know the other factions have a very different way of life than ours, but you are a Defender. When did you begin training?” He asked, trying to pull the conversation into a topic he understood a little better: military training.
“A little over year ago, I was a part of the planning and scheduling committee for the Coalition of Freed Planets that decided to send colonies to the Nomen, then I decided to see my plan through and joined the Defense Force. This was my first mission; I figured it would look good on my resume when I ran for Planetary Senator of Gardenia, my home world. Bo Traylor is from Gardenia, too….BO!” She suddenly stood up, remembering her comrade. “We have to go look for him!” She said, reaching for her rifle.
“Your friend Traylor died in the same building you were trapped under,” Karr said evenly. He was no stranger to the casualties of war and was more accustomed to handling death than Daena.
“No…” She whispered as she sat down again near the fire. Karr could see her head clasped in her hands as she began to quietly sob.