COLOSSUS: Departure

by Terry Frost

  Talking in a whisper, Jeeves leaned next to Jak and said, “I don’t even want to know what is making that ridiculous smirk on your face, Colonel.”

  Jak didn’t respond because he was getting into the frame of mind that he had heard enough about the damn Hive and wanted to see if Maalik might have any idea of where they could be located, even though he already said the Daakie didn’t know. Hammer was never very good at trusting people, or in this case aliens until they proved they deserved his trust.

  “Maalik, I have a very good reason for asking this question, if I may?”

  “You may ask your question, Hammer.”

  “I need for you to describe as best you can, what type of spacecraft does the hive use in their attacks. I’m asking about the smaller type craft and the reason I’m asking is that I think we might have found one of their training bases.”

  Maalik stood up quickly and said, “You think you found a Hive base?”

  “Yes, sir.

  Maalik turned to one of his guards standing at the back of the table, and said “Inform, Caid Tikit (Caid, rank given to the commander of a planet’s military) I have news of a probable Hive base in our sector and will be contacting him when I get to tactical.”

  The soldier bowed his head slightly, then quickly went out of the room.

  Rear Admiral Petrov was thinking Caid must be some kind of reference to rank. If so, this Tikik must be close to the top of command.

  Colonel Hammer, on the other hand, had a quick thought himself how the hell do you spell Tickic or is it Ticket?

  Maalik looking at his three guests, said, “Follow me, please. We are going to our strategic planning. We must find out what you know, and saw on their base, and if it is the Hive, we must engage them at all cost, if they are in the Bures System.

  Colonel Hammer quickly realized the next few hours or more was going to be Human’s first involvement in an alien military engagement. For a lifelong military professional like Jak Hammer, he hated war, but if war comes to him, he won’t make any apologies afterward.

  All three Humans were impressed with the technology displayed in the tactical room. Over half the room was covered in what looked to be monitors without any casing around them. They looked like they were hanging in mid-air.

  Centered in the middle of the monitors was the largest monitor in the room and showing on it was the Colossus, Striker, and Perseus. The large room was filled with military personnel and all of them had communicating devices in one of their ears.

  “Quite impressive, Admiral,” Jeeves said.

  Petrov nodded in agreement.

  In the middle of the room was a large holographic image of the Burrus System and Commodore Jeeves quickly counted sixty-six planets in the system, not counting several dozen moons. Maalik was looking anxious and after of few seconds of allowing his guests time to observe the holographic technology, he spoke.

  “Please study the map quickly and tell me which planet you found the training base. I must insist you do it now, as my superior is expecting a communication from me and he does not know patience.”

  Rear Admiral Petrov took a step closer to the holographic image, pointed at the avocado-colored planet and said, “It was that one, Burseq Maalik.”

  “Thank you, Admiral Petrov. I must ask you to leave this room and wait for me in the visitation room, please. I won’t be too long and we will get you back to your ship.”

  Maalik motioned for one of his guards to escort the three Humans out of the room. The soldier took them to the room, then left. Jeeves walked over to the sliding doors and they didn’t open as before.

  “It looks as if we have been denied the ability to exit this room, Admiral.”

  “Why can’t you just say the door is locked, Commodore? Hammer asked.

  Jeeves looked at Jak with his usual perplexed facial expression when not sure of how to respond to one of Jak’s consistent questioning of his analysis.

  “We would do the same thing, Commodore. Can’t have visitors wandering around the ship unsupervised,” Petrov said.

  They were in the room for around fifteen minutes, when the doors opened and in stepped Maalik, and with him was the beautiful Venic, Junal, and a young male Daakie.

  The young male looked to be no older than his early twenties and was wearing what Jeeves thought might be a military uniform that one would wear if he were enlisted in a military academy.

  Maalik addressing Admiral Petrov said, “Rear Admiral, may I ask you to take this youthful Daakie and the Venic with you to your ship? He is the eldest nephew of King Gaakin and Junal is his Tender. He is our Prince Gorvik and is the next in line to become king.

  “He was on board this ship while we were conducting military maneuvers as part of his military training just prior to your ship showing up on our scanners. Caid Tikik has ordered me to remove him from the Battlestar, as he doesn’t want any harm to befall him during our attack on the Hive training base. I informed Caid Tikik that we do not have time to return to Daak to offload the boy, and would ask your participation in his safe keeping.”

  “Of course. We would be honored to protect Junal and Prince Gorvik until your safe return. All I ask is that you allow Colonel Hammer to observe the destruction of the training base. We have concluded the Hive is a danger to the Nawi, Venic, Daakie, and Humans, as well as many races throughout this arm of the galaxy. Anything our kind can learn about their battle tactics would greatly enhance our ability to defend the Colossus in the future.”

  “That is not an unreasonable request, Rear Admiral Petrov. Now we must get the rest of you to your Colossus. Please maintain your present position until this Hive matter is concluded. Upon our return, we will pick up Junal and the young prince. I have been instructed to ask your Admiral Allen if he would be so kind to come to Daak for a meeting with our King Gaakin. Please follow me to the command center.”

  On their walk to the command center, Petrov whispered to Jak and said, “Learn all you can and don’t get yourself killed, Colonel Hammer.”

  “Yes, sir, Admiral. I will do my utmost to make sure I follow your orders to the letter. I would feel more confident if I was in control of my own ship, but it is what it is, I suppose. I am excited to see how this Daakie Battlestar maneuvers.

  The second the party was safely teleported back to Colossus, Burseq Maalik ordered his task force to gather and prepare to jump to the coordinates of the Hive training base. Hammer was standing in the command center of the Battlestar looking at a tactical display, which was showing over two dozen more attack spacecraft had come from planet Daak to join the task force. He was impressed with the expediency the Daakie displayed in forming up its task force.

  Turning to Jak, Burseq Maalik said, “Colonel Hammer, you are welcome to observe the power of a Daakie attack force, but please only observe.”

  Jak shook his head in acknowledgment but was thinking since I don’t know the first thing about this Battlestar I do believe observing is all I could do, General.

  Chapter 21

  The Daakie attack force came out of jump at a distance out of range of any of the Hive sensors located at their training base. Jak had informed Maalik that one of his subordinates had observed the base at a distance just below the planet’s stratosphere, and hadn’t been detected. Even with that knowledge, Maalik decided to not take any chances.

  The attack force had taken the shape of a large arrowhead with the Battlestar positioned at the arrow’s point and forwardmost ship.

  Maalik was busy giving orders in a language that the universal translator had failed to recognize. This was something Jak was going to have to discuss with Commodore Jeeves, the translator’s inventor.

  Even though Jak couldn’t tell what the general was saying, he could make an educated guess by watching the movement of the task force prior to their attack. Maalik knew once he brought the task force within sensor range it wouldn’t be long before the Hive would know they were there if they, in fact, had sensors at all.

&
nbsp; During the jump sequence, Colonel Hammer had given Burseq Maalik an approximate count of the size of the Hive’s base. When told he would be looking at several thousand piloted craft, Maalik was hoping Jak had miscalculated the number, but it wasn’t long before his hopes were dashed.

  The element of surprise was on the Daakie’s side, and they moved quickly to keep that tactical advantage. Maalik ordered the force to spread out from the arrow formation into a straight line, and before giving the order to begin the attack, he turned to his weapons station and said, “Fire three disrupters at these coordinates.”

  The weapons soldier said, “Coordinates locked, sir.”

  “Fire, fire, fire,” Maalik ordered.

  Whatever the weapon was, it rocked the ship when discharged and then Colonel Hammer saw three large green orbs heading down to the planet in a spread formation. When the disruptors hit their targets, it didn’t take long for Jak to see they were a different kind of disruptor than the ones equipped on the Colossus.

  The disruptors on the Colossus was used as a weapon that would disrupt ships from having tracking capabilities. The Daakie weapon had disabled many of the Hive’s training vessels as they began falling back to the surface of the planet like dead objects.

  Jak knew the weapon performed more like an EMP, (electromagnetic pulse), a weapon used to knock out electrical grids back on planet Earth during the Mountain Wars. A few seconds after the disruptors had done their job Maalik ordered an all-out surface attack.

  A large number of Hive single piloted craft were disabled, but there were many that had escaped the completely debilitating disruptors. What few had escaped, were flying out to meet the aggressors.

  But before they could reach the stratosphere, the task force was making short work of the much smaller and less powerful Hive trainers. But after only a few minutes the Battlestar’s sensors showed the large bay door built into the mountain open up and a much larger attack craft flew out and up toward the smaller two-man Daakie attack craft.

  The large Hive ship was the color of carbon black and was hard to pick up by the Daakie sensors. But it did cast enough of an image to show the outline of the ship. Sleek in its design, its wings were pulled back like the wings of a peregrine falcon when diving towards its prey. The ship was easily five to six times larger than the hornets on board Colossus.

  Burseq Maalik ordered his weapons commander to fire what he called concussions. A second after receiving the command, the weapons commander sent two blazing red blasts into the mountain through the open bay door. Almost immediately a large fireball exited the mouth of the bay door and huge rocks weighing many metric tons came down from the mountain and covered the entrance to the inside of the, now smoldering mountain.

  The larger Hive attack ship was engaging several of the Daakie spacecraft and was doing a good job of destroying several of the Daakie ships. Jak had observed the large Hive ship had been firing what looked like metal projectiles from its underbelly.

  The projectiles would strike the vessels and puncture the sides of the Daakie ships, but wouldn’t go completely through the ships. After only a few seconds after hitting the ships, the projectiles would explode tearing the ship apart, turning them into flaming balls.

  Maalik ordered his helmsman to engage the Hive ship, and within seconds the Battlestar was pounding the Hive ship with its Ion cannons. Jak counted at least a dozen Ion cannons firing from the Battlestar, which left him amazed at the power of the Daakie’s main battleship.

  The Hive ship took the brunt of the Daakie Battlestar’s attack, but it began to waver and quickly made its way out into space, and in the next instant, it had jumped into hyperspace and was gone.

  The second the ship disappeared, Jak turned to Maalik and said, “So, I see those aliens have jump capabilities.”

  “Yes, they do. We saw them jump during our fight to save the Venic of Obon. It is not a good thing we let the ship escape because I’m fairly certain he headed straight to the nearest giant Hive nest.”

  “Hive nest?”

  “That is what we are calling their main support ship. It resembles a giant six-pointed star with round fighter launch ports running up and down each section of the star and carries around two hundred of the smaller single piloted craft. The Hive vessel also carries a dozen of the larger attack craft that has three man crews piloting them and they are extremely fast. They are good evaders because of their maneuverability, and only our seasoned Boom9 pilots can defeat them in a head to head battle.”

  Jak thought Boom9’s huh. Must be the Daakie name of their fighters that are pounding the surface of the base right now, and the escorts for the Zurgut.

  The pilots ordered to attack the surface had in those orders a command to try to capture a live Hive member. Maalik wanted intel and had never gotten the opportunity to capture any of the Hive, and this particular attack might just give him his captive.

  The Daakie task force continued to destroy the base for close to twenty minutes, then Maalik was notified they had captured one Hive member. As soon as he was informed, Maalik ordered a complete withdrawal from the planet. Once it was confirmed all his remaining task force was gathered for their jump back to planet Daak he gave the order to jump.

  During their jump, Maalik asked Jak to accompany him to his private quarters, just a few steps away from the Zurgut’s bridge. Just as both men entered the quarters, Maalik motioned for Jak to take a seat in one of two S-shaped chairs.

  Maalik walked over to a panel on the wall and pushed a button and a long vertical channel came out of the wall. He reached to his right side and Jak heard two clicks, then Maalik pulled off his armored chest covering and hung it on an L-shaped bracket, pushed a button on the panel again, and the chest slid back its slot.

  The general was a well-sculptured alien, and even with his shroud clothing underneath his battle gear, it was easy to tell he worked hard to keep his body fine tuned. Jak noticed the general had a one inch long Z on his forearms and decided to ask him about the markings.

  “What are those, Maalik?

  “It is a customary honor bestowed by King Gaakin to those that are given the command of a Zurgut Battlestar. My uncle was the first Daakie to be bestowed this honor and I dreamed of having the mark since I was a young Daakie going through our military training at the age of eleven periods.”

  Since the two beings were not in a military situation, Burseg Maalik returned to his casual address when talking to Jak.

  Maalik went to the small bar in his quarters and poured two stiff drinks of his beloved Pompal, then walked over to Jak and handed him a chalice, then took a seat on the couch and began to talk.

  “So, Jak, what did you think about the firepower of my Zurgut?”

  “Very impressive. But I have a feeling you didn’t show me all the Zurgut has as far as firepower. Am I correct on that?”

  Maalik looked at him for a second or two then asked, “Why would you think that Jak?”

  “I’m a military man, sir, and I’m willing to wager that this Battlestar has more than disruptors and Ion cannons.”

  “You are correct, sir. But I needed to capture a member of the Hive to interrogate, and I would not have been able to do that had I used our gamma burst weaponry.”

  Maalik could see that Jak was extremely excited to hear the words gamma burst in the same sentence as weaponry.

  “You meant to say nuclear weaponry, not gamma burst didn’t you, sir”

  “No, Jak, I said gamma burst. We stopped using nuclear weapons eons ago. Our scientist had discovered how to harness many kinds of different spatial energies and one of those was the gamma ray. While true that we haven’t harnessed the full power of an actual gamma-ray, we have captured some of gamma ray’s power. So the gamma-ray burst, as we have named the weapon, is as close to an actual gamma-ray burst as we could get.”

  Jak’s mind was in overdrive with this news and he knew the Daakie were not to be trifled with, but yet wondered why the Daakie hadn't been abl
e to totally eliminate the Hive with a weapon that could easily destroy a planet.

  “Would you say your gamma ray weapon is powerful enough to actually destroy a planet?”

  “I could only wish that to be true, Jak, but unfortunately it isn’t. Remember I said we haven’t harnessed the full power of a gamma-ray burst, but ours is strong enough to kill every living creature on a planet, and make the planet a dead world, or what might be, forever.”

  Maalik was holding back a secret about using the weapon and could not share it with his alien friend as a matter of military secrecy among the Daakie forces. What he didn't divulge to him was that firing the weapon used all the energy the Battlestar could muster, and once fired, the ship was left completely drained of all power for a minimum of an hour until the ship’s engineers could get the power built up again. Basically, the Battlestar was a dead ship with only enough power left to keep life support up and running.

  Jak raised his chalice to make a toast and said, “Well, here’s to you never needing such a weapon in the future,” then the two men touched their chalices.

  “I drank to your toast, Jak, but I’ll let you know right now that if we ever find the Hive homeworld we will not spare the use of the weapon.”

  Chapter 22

  The Zurgut had returned from the Hive training base and teleported Jak back to Colossus, then received Junal, the Venic, and Gorvick, the oldest nephew of King Gaakin. But before leaving to report to his king, Maalik informed Admiral Allen (via monitor) that King Gaakin had invited him to come to the Daakie homeworld. He told Allen that they would have to prepare for his visit and would contact him at the time of his visit.

  Admiral Allen, Rear Admiral Petrov, General Dubois, and Commodore Jeeves, were in Room Forward while Jak was being debriefed about his trip on the Zurgut, and the taking out of the Hive training base.

  “I’m not quite sure I heard you right, Colonel. Did you say gamma-ray burst?”