“I don’t know,” said Alesyna. “It’s as if they cease to exist once they enter.”
“If we get closer would you be able to get a better idea?”
Alesyna winced. “Maybe.”
“Helm, a little closer,” said Peiun, returning his gaze to the viewer. “Not too close, of course.”
The red and magenta clouds of the maelstrom covered every inch of the viewer once the Rezeki’s Rage was brought to its closest approach yet. Faint visages of the invader ships could be seen vanishing deeper into the strange cloudy phenomenon. Peiun used his HNI to enhance the zoom of the viewer to its maximum setting.
“I can see the ships still,” he said.
“As can I, but I still can’t sense their existence,” Alesyna said.
Peiun felt his chair shake and hoped it was only his that did so. Looking around the bridge revealed otherwise, everyone’s chairs were shaking. The entire ship began to rumble and rock chaotically.
“Gravity well!” Louik frantically shouted.
I guess that’s enough data for now, Peiun thought. “Get us out of here.”
Louik’s hands moved quickly, interacting with various holographic commands and displays. Peiun didn’t see the stars and blackness of space return to the view screen. The center of the maelstrom swelled in size. They were being pulled in by an internal force of gravity.
“I can’t break free!”
4 Foster
ESRS Carl Sagan, Bridge
Inside Invader fleet formation, Earth orbit, Sol system
August 2, 2118, 16:59 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Captain Rebecca Foster climbed back into her chair as the rest of the crew returned to their posts after being flung to the floor from what she hoped was the last nuclear missile strike near the Carl Sagan. Wearing a seat belt probably would have been a good idea, the inertia dampers were never tested after all to see if they would work properly during a nuclear strike. Then again, any attack that dropped shield power rapidly had a tendency to throw them out of whack.
“That last nuke did a number on our shields,” Williams said, checking his computer screen. “We’re at thirty-four percent.”
Foster’s eagle eye spotted a clearing through the debris created in the aftermath of the UNE’s nuclear rainstorm. There were fewer invader ships blocking their path, a path that led right to Earth and the protection of other Earth warships refusing to let invader ships get past.
“Chang, get us out of here,” Foster said, pointing at the clearing seen from the windshield. “Navigate the best you can through this crap.”
“I’m assuming those ships are the good guys?” Chang said as he brought the Carl Sagan about.
Foster shrugged. “I think.”
“That’s the UNE fleet,” Park said, reminding Foster that Park and her EDF team were still on the bridge.
“They just look a whole lot different,” Chang said. “You know without the habitat ring and all.”
Chang cautiously directed the Carl Sagan closer to the UNE fleet and away from the web of invader ships that had encircled them for several hours. Burning chunks of what looked like bones and flesh drifted past the windshield, proof the invader ships were indeed organic with mechanical parts such as its weapons, cybernetics, and engines.
As the Carl Sagan got closer to the UNE fleet, they also got closer to Earth. Weapons fire from the invaders focused slightly less on the UNE fleet as it added the Carl Sagan to its list of targets, making its aft and port-side shields flicker and flash a bright blue.
“And now the invader ships are shooting at us,” Chang said drily.
“At least we know who’s on our side now,” Foster said.
“I dunno,” Chang said. “Those nukes for a moment had me questioning that—”
Sparks and small flames shot away from his terminal. Follow-up explosions were rocking the ship, the Carl Sagan was not going to last long.
“Damn, these things pack a punch,” Chang said.
“I don’t get it,” Williams said. “Why did they wait until now to shoot at us?”
What Williams said raised an excellent question in Foster’s mind. The Carl Sagan had just entered its seventh hour flying alongside the invader fleet without being shot at. It was only when they began to move on their own and attempt to escape the invaders took notice. Was the Carl Sagan a battle trophy? Or were they convinced without a doubt that the Carl Sagan and its crew were valuable allies, allies that had no memory of agreeing to help.
Despite the repeated attacks, the Carl Sagan defiantly continued to push away from the fleet, turning and dodging around large remains of invader ships, and waving around individual invader ships that broke from their weblike formation around them.
Chang managed to sway away from the vast majority of them, but there were two particular ships that flew in front of the Carl Sagan in reverse, so their main forward guns were always in their face.
Those shots of energy were impossible to dodge.
Foster had enough. “Return fire.”
The Carl Sagan’s rail guns discharged, perforating holes in the two taunting ships. There were no exit shots. Whatever the fleshy material the organic ships were made of was tough, and from what Foster was able to observe, sealed shut seconds later. It was like watching someone get shot then the bullet wounds heal up right away.
The plasma missiles that launched from the missile tubes delivered similar results. They crashed and exploded upon the invader ships, burning, gouging, and hacking away chunks of the fleshlike hull. It took two minutes for the wounds to seal up, and the burn marks from the plasma missiles to vanish.
We may as well be throwing tennis balls at them, Foster groaned internally.
New beam weapon strikes hit the Carl Sagan from all angles and at least one of those strikes hit the hull, meaning shields in some sections of the ship were gone.
“Captain, we can’t take much of this,” Williams said.
Overshields, a psionic barrier that protects the primary shields, were not an option. Tolukei, their main shipboard psionic had exhausted his mind to keep them up during the first nuclear barrage almost an hour ago. Had he not, the Carl Sagan would have already been destroyed, by friendly fire at that.
An hour ago . . . It got Foster thinking. She faced the shirtless Javnis man. His face wasn’t as tired as it was during the barrage as he must have had enough downtime to partially recover his mind. Nereid was with him too, the Undine girl from Sirius and, Tolukei’s assistant for lack of a better term. She may not have been as talented at creating an overshield as he was, but her mind and his together, they could do things that people on Earth would consider impossible.
Like fly into the corona of Sirius A.
“Tolukei, Nereid,” Foster called out. “Use that overlord psionic amplifier thingy and get the enhanced overshields up.”
If the Carl Sagan could fly into a star as powerful as Sirius A and live, a couple of invader ships with their fancy energy weapons shouldn’t be an issue. Foster’s only regret was not using it during the nuclear bombardment. It wasn’t her fault she forgot about it as it was still a new tactic, and she sure as hell didn’t see anyone else suggest using it, including the two psionics who also probably forgot about it.
Tolukei reached down to obtain the device, while Foster noted that Nereid didn’t have her Voelika with her, a strange staff-like object that amplified her psionic powers. Probably left it in her quarters she figured, it’s not like anyone had been planning for this to happen.
While Tolukei did his thing, Foster returned her gaze forward at the two invader ships in front lingering in full reverse taking shots at them. She displayed a cocky smile at the sight of the two ships and pointed her index finger at them in defiance.
“Ya’ll just keep shootin’ at us,” she gloated. “We’s gonna fix you good any second now. Ain’t that right, Tolukei and Nereid?”
“I cannot find the device,” Tolukei said.
Foster shut her ey
es and clenched her fists, wishing he had not said that. “What in the hell do you mean, you can’t find it?”
“It is not here, Captain.”
“Rivera put in a lot of time on her off hours to install a nice little storage shelf for that in case of an emergency,” Foster said, opening her eyes, and looking at Tolukei and Nereid’s empty hands.
“I understand that, Captain.”
“And you’re tellin’ me we done gone lost it?”
“It would appear so.”
“Check underneath, maybe it came loose and fell when we lost gravity during our cryo nap.”
“We looked there,” Tolukei said with enthusiasm. “Captain, it is missing, it is not an option.”
Foster pulled her hands up to face-palm. “Goddamn it!”
“Plus,” Tolukei added. “Wouldn’t it require some time for it to be reapplied on our heads?”
“Forget it,” Foster said, and removed her hands away from her face, returning her stare to the windshield and the multiple energy weapons finishing off the forward shields. “Just use what powers you got left to keep us in one piece.”
“Understood, suspending all ESP and weapon assist abilities,” Tolukei said.
“I shall do the same,” Nereid said.
A small and less than effective overshield returned to protect the Carl Sagan, waves of purple psionic energy rippled away from the areas the overshield was shot at by the invader ships. It bought them, at best, three minutes of survival before that one fatal shot landed.
EVE’s hologram appeared standing next to Foster. “Captain, at our current speed and trajectory and the rate of fire we are receiving, it is unlikely we will survive long enough.”
“Let’s think happy thoughts, people!” Foster exclaimed.
“She is right,” Pierce said, reading his computer screen. “According to my analysis, these ships are armed with tachyon weapons.”
“Tachyons?” Foster said with raised eyebrows. “I didn’t know those were possible.” Then again, she and the crew did and saw a lot of things at Sirius that wasn’t supposed to be possible. The universe was full of surprises.
“In any case, tachyons travel faster than light,” Pierce said. “Even if we break out of this gauntlet, they will still be able to target and shoot us. We need to either be multiple AUs away, have something else take the hit for us, or just be out of their line of sight.”
That was assuming, of course, the invaders had shipboard psionics. If not, then the Carl Sagan just needed to be out of reliable scanning range. Sure, the invaders’ weapons would still be able to hit them, but if they didn’t know exactly where to shoot, it was a crap shot. It would also explain why they waited until they were close to Earth to start shooting it and the ships around it. Ships, defense platforms, even the Earth, it all moved. Shooting a target say five AU away with an FTL weapon would still require the gunner to know exactly where said target would be when the weapon blast cleared those five AUs.
“That’s the plan,” Foster said, gesturing to the UNE fleet and their means of breaking the invaders’ line of sight to them.
“We need another plan that will allow us to get to the fleet . . .” Chang said drily.
Groups of clustering invader ships were shot away from their formation by the enormous main particle cannons of the Julius Caesar. The mighty Earth dreadnaught used its powerful shields and hull to shield the Carl Sagan from hostile attacks. Its fighters launched from its eight launch bays, and gave the invaders something else to shoot at as its weapons were more threatening than the Carl Sagan’s rail guns and plasma missiles.
It was the ‘another plan’ they needed.
“Will that do?” Foster said to Chang.
“Yes, it will, Captain, that ship is drawing all weapons fire!”
“Well then, Mr. Chang, less fancy dogging and more getting us the hell out of here!”
“Already on it!”
Once clear of the invader ships, now focused on the Julius Caesar, the Carl Sagan accelerated at greater speeds away from the chaos raging behind them. The windshields of the bridge might not have showed them what was going on, but rear sensor sweeps did. The invaders were either threatened by the hulking dreadnaught or upset that it allowed the Carl Sagan to flee.
The Julius Caesar was hit with multiple tachyon beam fire from several different angles. Its overshields shattered under the intense barrage, its fighters were picked off one after another with just two to three tachyon burst shots. The invader ships placed themselves in front of the Julius Caesar, as another twelve swooped down from behind. The Julius Caesar was trapped.
Its shields from its aft end shattered, the main rear engines caught fire, and triggered several internal blasts. The reactor overheated and began to vent plasma and deadly radiation onto its engineering crew. The hull began to twist and rupture, fires that began to spread from inside were put out . . . by the vacuum of space. UNE navy personnel flailed their arms and legs while their tumbling bodies froze from the coldness of space they found themselves blown out to. The emergency force fields weren’t activating, power had become a problem for the ship for that to happen.
The Julius Caesar vanished from sensor scans around the time a massive explosion consumed the ship, an explosion that ripped the ship apart bulkhead by bulkhead, compartment by compartment. Smoldering chunks of its remains shot outward, shredding the twenty-four invader ships that had encircled it. The invaders too endured the fate of the Julius Caesar. The Carl Sagan caught the tail end of the Julius Caesar’s destructive end, shattering the last of the psionic duo’s overshields, and sending it tumbling out of control, well past the UNE fleet.
“Keep us steady!” Foster said, locking her seatbelt in place.
Nonstop rumblings made it difficult for anyone to perform their duties. It was like they were caught in a magnitude eight earthquake, one that wouldn’t stop, one that wouldn’t allow Chang to regain control. And so, they spun and rolled as the view of Earth rolled in and out of sight. Every time the blue planet came into sight it was larger, all the while, the UNE fleet was nowhere to be seen.
Eventually, the tumbling subsided and the Carl Sagan leveled off. Earth’s horizon was a lot closer by the time that happened, so were the clouds. Flames had raged up and across the windshield, atmospheric reentry was at hand. Earth’s gravity had them now.
“So . . .” Chang said amongst the sound of the ship falling apart. “Captain, is this a bad time to mention the Carl Sagan wasn’t built for atmospheric travel?”
“Well aware of that!”
“So, you know that this means the ‘what goes up must come down’ rule now applies to us?”
“Just find a nice spot to take us down,” Foster snorted.
The view of space from the windshield was long gone, replaced with blue sunny skies and the odd wave of white mist when they plunged through a cloud or two. Out from the clouds Foster noticed winged serpentlike creatures soaring through the skies. They looked like Pterodactyls and, quite possibly, were outfitted with weapons, cybernetics maybe? It was hard to tell at the speeds they were plummeting at.
Chang noticed the flying creatures as well. “What the hell is that? A dragon?”
A dragon, the other term to describe these creatures Foster wanted to avoid.
“It’s from the invaders,” Park said. “They’ve been deploying those all across Earth to support their foot soldiers.”
“Captain,” Chang said.
“What is it?”
“I know this is a really, really bad time to mention this but . . .” Chang faced Foster and locked his eyes on her head. “When did you cut your hair?”
“Oh, my lord,” Foster said, resisting the urge to bring up the fact his beard and hair had grown long. “Chang, of all the things goin’ on now, you gotta bring that up?”
“I just wanted to get those words in, in case this is it,” he added. “And it looks cute—”
“Eyes on the road!”
“What
road? We’re in the fucking skies falling to our deaths!” Chang returned to attend the helm. “Do you see any roads up here?”
Foster smiled at Chang, he was military, and she was a civilian explorer. Foster wasn’t going to come down hard on him for his outburst. That, and she knew humor and snarky remarks were his way of coping with stress and brightening the spirits of others. And right now, they were facing the most stressful moment of their time on the ship.
“Maybe the road to heaven,” Williams snickered.
“Dom, stop, we’s got this,” Foster said to Williams.
“Captain, I am concerned right now,” EVE said.
Foster smiled at the holographic AI who was the only person on the bridge that didn’t struggle to stay still during the violent rumbling. “Just keep doing your thing, EVE, with your calculations, Tolukei and Nereid’s powers, and Chang’s piloting we could pull this off.”
“Captain, if this ship is to be destroyed, my operation would cease to function,” EVE said. “I would be . . . dead. I’m scared, I don’t want to die.”
“Like I said, we’s got this, ain’t that right, Chang?”
“After that last hit, I make no guarantees.”
Foster swiftly faced EVE. “Don’t listen to him, he be trippin’!”
The Carl Sagan’s rapid descent to the surface neared its end. Thanks to Chang’s piloting skills they did not burn up on reentry, Foster hoped his skills would continue to be an asset when it came to the landing, which would be rough and dangerous. Sweat began to roll across foreheads, heartbeats were at their maximum rate, and anxious thoughts were abuzz in everyone’s head.
Geneva was below according to EVE, and according to the plume of black smoke they passed through, the city was being razed by the invaders. Chang adjusted the Carl Sagan’s descent, forcing it to glide further north, away from the city and into the lake near Geneva, the safest place they could crash-land.
“All hands brace for impact!” Foster said via a ship wide broadcast.
Ten seconds to impact. The bridge crew ensured they were still strapped in.
Celestial Incursion (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 1) Page 6