Resolute Strike (The War for Terra Book 7)

by James Prosser

  “It’s amazing,” Alice replied, a vague look in her eyes. “It’s so simple.”

  “Thank you,” the women said with a slight smile. “We followed detailed instructions from the designers.”

  “The designers?” Alice asked, stepping back from the device and into Lee’s outstretched arm. “We thought you were alone?”

  Na’Tora stepped closer to Lee, past Henry, who had been focused on the stationary creature in the receptacle. He was holding one of the hand scanners the team had brought to detect life on the station high above his head. The device was starting to show readings consistent with a life force other than theirs.

  “Captain,” the Ch’Tauk said suddenly. “I believe this is not a safe place. We must take the device and get back to the shuttle.”

  “I’m guessing the scavenger ships outside are crewed by more of you ladies?” Lee asked the android women. “All smiling and being pleasant and convincing anyone passing by that the station has been taken by the scavengers?”

  “You are correct,” the androids replied. “They provide excellent protection.”

  “Then we should be safe, Tercero,” Lee replied, turning to look at his first officer. “It’s just us here. The scanner is picking up static from the … uh … women.”

  “Sir, the energy is building fast. We must go now,” Na’Tora replied, his pheromones rising in intensity. “I believe we are not as alone as you—”

  A bright flash in the center of the room made Lee wince. Na’Tora’s scent spiked in intensity as a small figure appeared from the flash. White-on-white eyes stared back from pale skin. The little alien looked up at Na’Tora with no expression. The Ch’Tauk seemed to stagger as the creature turned its gaze towards Lee. The Ch’Tauk dropped the scanner and the small knife Lee hadn’t seen him pull and fell to the floor prostrate.

  “Captain Pearce,” the Engineer said, staring at Lee with his blank eyes. “It is good to see you again.”

  “I should have known you would be here,” Lee replied. “Are you the one I spoke to during the war?”

  “As much as we are any one creature, yes I am.”

  “Captain!” the voice of Kama Yu suddenly crackled over the comm. “We’ve got multiple incoming targets!”

  “Get to tactical alert and get those shields up,” Lee ordered, speaking into the suddenly crackling wrist comm. “Is it scavengers?”

  “Negative,” Kama replied with a strange note of terror in her voice. “The signal is distant but coming in fast. You’ve got to get back here now.”

  “We’re on our way,” Lee said. “Gregor, get the device and get back to the shuttle.” He turned to the small creature. “Can I assume you need a ride?”

  “I expended much energy coming here now,” the Engineer replied. “I do not believe staying here would be advantageous.”

  “Alright, go with the team. You two can fly a ship?” Lee asked the androids.

  “We have the knowledge of our others,” the pair responded, reaching out to take the filled canisters between them. “We will take one of the station shuttles to your ship and bring our other with us.”

  “Alright,” Lee ordered the group. “Na’Tora, get up. This is not the time. Let’s go!”

  Na’Tora seemed startled by the tone as he rose to his feet. The team moved swiftly through the room, not caring if they knocked over the delicate equipment as they hurried with the device held between them. At the lift, Lee smashed the controls, hoping the machine would operate faster. At the airlock, the security team, with Henry and Na’Tora in tow, parted company with the captain and Alice. The twins ran across the landing bay towards a ship already prepped by Merlin for flight. As Lee settled into his own cockpit, he felt the sense of urgency which preceded any battle. The cockpit sealed and the heads-up display snapped into place. He waited as the pressure equalized and the landing bay doors opened. As he looked out into space, he felt the blood rushing through his veins as the shuttle undocked and the small ship began to move towards Resolute.

  “Captain, we have a reading on the incoming ships,” Kama’s voice announced. “They’re—”

  “Who is it?” Lee asked, the panic in Kama’s voice worrying him more than the incoming ships.

  “Captain … they’re Ch’Tauk.”

  20

  Alliance Assault Frigate Kongo

  “Tactical alert!” Farthing shouted to his weapons officers. “Raise shields and get us between the station and those ships.”

  “Aye.”

  “Maslow, open a channel to the Ch’Tauk,” the captain ordered over a shoulder. “Let’s see what our allies are up to.”

  “Channel open,” Maslow replied from the communications station. “I’m receiving a signal from a Quartero Du’Taki. He’s ordering us to stand down.”

  “Like hell we will,” Farthing replied, his crest rising to full. “I want to see this creature. Give me a visual feed.”

  The projection screen shimmered; the image changed from an exterior view of space to a darkened bridge with streaming lines of data cascading along ceiling-to-floor panels. A Ch’Tauk officer clicked his mandibles at the screen and chittered in their language. The delay in translation was frustrating to the former communications officer and he turned to his own comms lieutenant. The man was tapping switches on his panel furiously with all twelve fingers on his circular hand. He looked up and blinked his dark red irises at his captain. It was the closest thing to a signal Farthing had ever seen from the man. He turned back to the screen as the voice finally began to translate.

  “…are sent by your leaders to escort your ships back to Alliance space and take possession of the device you have illegally stolen from the facility…”

  “This is Captain Farthing of the Alliance assault frigate Kongo,” the captain said, standing in the command well of his ship. “Under whose authority are you ordering us to leave this Alliance station?”

  “Captain Farthing of the Kongo, I repeat my message,” the Ch’Tauk clicked back. “You are ordered by your superiors to return with us to Alliance space and turn over the device to this ship. Failure to comply will result in—”

  “What device?” Farthing interrupted. “Du’Taki, my ship and the battleship nearby are attached by special orders to this facility. We will not surrender to you or any of your ships until you tell me who these superiors are and what device you are talking about.”

  “Captain, your name is known to us as one who participated in the battles between our peoples,” Du’Taki replied, leaning closer to the screen. “My superiors would not like to see you or your ship destroyed because you refused to submit to us.”

  “Captain, they’re arming their weapons systems and spreading out into standard attack formation,” Telexo called from the sensor station behind Farthing. “Resolute reports the Demons are not aboard.”

  “Quartero,” Farthing said to the image while pulling up a projection of the surrounding space. “Surely you understand the chain of command. I have orders from the highest authority on my world to be right here, right now. I am simply asking you to tell me the name of these superiors you speak of. It’s a simple request.”

  “My orders come from the Emperor Ch’Tauk, long may his radiance light the universe,” Du’Taki replied. “Your compliance with this order is requested but not required. We know the device has been taken from the station and is on board the small ship traveling to the battleship.”

  “This ship does not take its orders from the Emperor,” Farthing said, a strange chill turning his crest full red as blood filled the skin beneath. “Du’Taki, I am ordering your ships to—”

  “Captain!” Maslow called as the image suddenly snapped off. “They’ve launched fighters!”

  “Signal Resolute and let them know the Ch’Tauk are coming for the shuttle. Open weapons ports and launch mines.”

  “Weapons ports are hot,” Telexo replied, moving from the sensor station to man the secondary weapons station. “Mines are away.”


  “Resolute is reporting ready, sir. They say Flyboy is still en route.”

  “Lee Pearce,” Farthing said, gnashing his sharp teeth together. “Always when I get involved with that human…”

  Silver Eagle Fighter

  “Demons, break right and spread out,” Lee ordered over the comm. “They’re after the shuttle. Aztec, take Princess and watch the utility ship. Jackal and Merlin, on me.”

  A chorus of assent followed the orders. Splitting off, Alice’s ship wobbled a wing to Lee’s, wishing him luck in the ancient code of fighter pilots. Lee nodded absently in his cockpit as he juked the stick hard to the right and aimed his nose at the passenger shuttle. The first wave of fighters from the Ch’Tauk was coming in fast but not yet within firing range. The heads-up showed Jackal and Merlin on either wing, their own weapons hot and ready. Lee flicked the arming switch for the cannons and activated shields. It had been a while since he had flown a combat mission, but the old habits never really left. He goosed the throttle and shot ahead of the others and into firing range.

  “Light ‘em up,” Lee ordered. “Keep them away from the shuttles.”

  The first lance of orange-red plasma arced out from the Ch’Tauk attack squadron. As usual, the attacking squad consisted of three groups of four fighters spread out in a triple vee pattern. The lead ship fired first while the other two wings broke off and went for Lee’s own wingmen. On his heads-up, he noted the same pattern moving towards Alice and the smaller shuttle. Beyond, two more squadrons were taking a position on the other side of Resolute, rolling left and right to avoid the battleship’s cannons.

  Lee rolled hard to starboard, avoiding the Ch’Tauk plasma by centimeters across his belly. He opened fire with his own cannons, peppering the alien ship with light hits to test its defenses. The squat, bug-like fighter took the blasts easily and pulled up and away, scattering its own flight behind it. Lee’s heads-up showed the four ships angling to close in around him. He pressed the power button forward on his cannons and readied for the hits to come. He felt the ship bounce as the Ch’Tauk plasma bolts slammed into his shields. The energy spike caused his instruments to flare slightly, but otherwise his ship took the hits and channeled them into his own defensive systems.

  “Good to see everything still works,” Lee said to himself. “Let’s see if I can still fly one of these things in combat.”

  With two fighters coming around in a pincer movement, and two coming at him from above and below, Lee needed to get out of the kill-zone in a hurry. He pushed his throttle forward past the twenty-percent mark. Long ago he had accidentally pushed the ship towards superluminal flight, and had regretted it ever since. This time, he wanted to shoot out of the line of fire quickly. The stars shuddered as he increased speed and blasted past the Ch’Tauk ships faster than they could detect. He pulled back the throttle to zero and flipped the ship around, flying backwards away from the attack wing. The lead ship, the one which had moved up and over his position, had no time to react. Lee’s cannons ripped across his fighter’s armored shell. Lee watched it burst under the impact and explode as the interior oxygen caught fire.

  He goosed the throttle back up to fifteen percent and shot down at the ship trying to come in under him. Plasma blasted across open space as Lee hit the ship head-on. Both fighters were engulfed in orange-red flame as the plasma crisscrossed the kill-zone. Lee’s shields held against the onslaught but the Ch’Tauk’s armor did not. He flew through the debris, scattering pieces of armor and Ch’Tauk across space. He checked the heads-up and found Jackal and Merlin in similar fights, holding their own against the first attack squadron. The shuttles were closer to the battleship’s docking bay, but still not close enough. Lee noticed the larger shuttle was veering off slightly as if avoiding an invisible obstacle. He tried not to worry and angled his attack closer to the ship.

  The two incoming Ch’Tauk fighters suddenly changed tactics, altering course and moving into formation to chase Lee’s fighter. He wanted to draw them away from the shuttle, but he also needed to get an idea of why the transport ship was moving off-course. His mission priority was the safety of that shuttle and the device within.

  “Big Momma, this is Flyboy,” Lee called to his ship. “I’m reading a lost child out here. What’s the baby monitor say?”

  “Flyboy, do not approach lost child,” Kama Yu’s voice called over the comm. “I monitored a signal from the station just before the bugs came, sir. It read like static from a broken comm system, but I finally got it unscrambled.”

  “What was it?” Lee asked, trying to avoid two sets of plasma blasts from the pursuing fighters.

  “It was a homing signal, sir,” Kama replied, stress in her voice. “Someone called in that fleet.”

  “Patch me through to that shuttle,” Lee ordered, spinning his ship around an axis to avoid another hit.

  “I can’t, sir,” Kama replied. “They’ve closed off communications and are refusing to answer the hail.”

  “Alright, I’ll let Gregor and Henry handle it,” Lee replied. “How’s my ship?”

  “Well…” Kama said with an odd tone in her voice. “With you gone, it’s really just Josh and Cal in charge up here.”

  “Cal?” Lee asked, a sudden smile crossing his lips. “Don’t tell me…”

  Resolute Shuttle

  Henry Moore felt the hard shell of Na’Tora’s arm slam against his chest just as he reached for his sidearm. The power behind it lifted him from the deck and knocked him into the bulkhead. He lost grip on the pistol as he slid into one of the foldout seats, and he didn’t bother trying to retrieve it. A blast of hot plasma lanced across the space inside, skewering two of the security team, who had just realized what was happening. The Ch’Tauk advanced forward into the shuttle’s small interior, holding the pistol ahead of his shiny black body. Gregor, in the pilot’s seat, slapped the control separating the pilot from the rear compartment, sealing them into the back. Na’Tora tried to fire his pistol again, but the young man still wearing the decryption gear leapt onto the alien’s back.

  Na’Tora reached behind him, his joints bending at an impossible angle, and snagged the man by the backpack. Henry heard fabric tear as the man was dragged across the roof of the shuttle to face the enraged Ch’Tauk Tercero. The first blow was with the pistol; blood spattered across the bulkhead as the man’s face was nearly torn from the bone. The second was with the sharp back of Na’Tora’s four-fingered hand. This blow severed the man’s neck, ceasing his screams and silencing the man forever. A second guard, this one prepared and much bigger, stepped into the fray, reaching around the Ch’Tauk and pulling up to immobilize Na’Tora’s arms. The alien dropped the dead man and pushed back. The final soldier dug in, refusing to let the alien gain any leverage. Na’Tora’s elbow joint rotated and suddenly the plasma pistol was facing the guard’s head. As the weapon fired, the man ducked, receiving a glancing blow which seared away hair but left him alive.

  Henry rolled away from the wall as the plasma impacted a few centimeters from his head and the bulkhead bubbled. Coiling up, he sprang at the Ch’Tauk, who was still struggling with the soldier. He slammed into both men, pushing the mass of armor and flesh into the bulkhead Gregor had sealed. Na’Tora let out a chatter of clicks Henry took to be a scream, before kicking backwards and slicing away at the guard’s left calf. It seemed there wasn’t a part of the alien’s body which couldn’t be used as a weapon, and Henry knew he was now essentially on his own.

  The guard screamed, but as he fell he kicked out with his own booted foot, cracking the knee joint of the Ch’Tauk. Na’Tora twisted to one side, trying not to lose his footing. Fluid gushed from the alien’s joint and Henry knew the guard had struck a painful blow. Again, the guard kicked out. This time though the alien was ready for it and grabbed the boot with his sharp pincer-like fingers. He squeezed and Henry saw blood as the tip of the boot and foot fell away. A howl of pain and a spray of blood told Henry the guard was out of the fight, and he moved fast to take
advantage of the man’s sacrifice.

  His first move was a sharp kick to Na’Tora’s arm, knocking the pistol loose and sending it clattering across the deck into a corner. His second was a follow-through roundhouse to the alien’s head, knocking him away from the guard and back into the bulkhead. Henry looked for a weapon. The Ch’Tauk recovered and turned back to face the old soldier. His vocoder was sizzling but Henry could still make out a few words.

  “…human meat … will fall to the … Emperor and his—”

  “Shut the hell up,” Henry said, lowering his head and charging the alien.

  Henry ducked low as Na’Tora’s sharp claw came down against his back. The thin body armor Lee had insisted he wear absorbed most of the blow, but Henry felt a sharp pain between his shoulders. Ignoring the pain, he slammed the Ch’Tauk into the bulkhead again, eliciting more crackles of static from the vocoder. He dug his heels in and lifted the alien from the deck. Na’Tora let out chitter as Henry allowed the ship’s artificial gravity to take him backwards towards the deck. Na’Tora’s head impacted first, his vocoder emitting a high-pitched squeal as Na’Tora screamed in pain. Henry released the alien and rolled back up, turning to face the creature.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Henry shouted at the other creature. “We’re allies, you son of a bitch.”

  “The Emperor commands…” Na’Tora’s vocoder began through pops and cracks. “…and I obey. The Ch’Tauk have met … and we will rule the galaxy as it was…”

  “I have had about enough of you,” Henry said, wiping blood from his back. “You took everything away from me. Twice! It’s time I started taking things back from you.”

  Henry charged again, this time feinting right just before slamming into the alien. Na’Tora swung down with his hand, trying to cut Henry in half, but missed as Henry moved left at the last minute and knocked the alien down again. The human tried punching into the Ch’Tauk’s stomach but the pain of impacting the armor shell was too much. Instead, he grabbed the Ch’Tauk on either side of his thin waist and lifted, slamming the creature down to the deck, jamming his knee into his lower abdomen. Again, the squeal of pain erupted from the vocoder. It was sweet music to Henry as he continued to jam his knees into the alien.