“Makes sense,” Feln said. “But they seemed to have a hard enough time with our simple colonization fleet. And then they brought in the Uhlinder’s fleet, which gave us even more firepower. That seemed like a big mistake to bring the other fleet in considering how much damage we did with our fleet alone. With how long they’ve been watching us, you’d think they wouldn't have brought in a full battle fleet to bolster our ranks since they know our ships’ capabilities.”
Aaltskog laughed, “Well, here’s where the whole thing is actually kind of funny. Because, yeah, it totally was a mistake bringing us here! And they really screwed up bringing in the Uhlinder’s fleet.
“See, they didn’t actually create the array. They found it. They think it was a weapon left behind by the Ancient Enemy, but they’re not totally sure. The array is really old— at least 30,000 years.”
“Damn,” Feln said. “But then again, the Ancients originally left their home somewhere around 30,000 years ago, so I guess I can see it.”
“Right. So anyway, they find this array but it hasn’t been functional for millennia. So after screwing around with it for the past 80 years or so, they started to get it working again. They finally went to test it, and well, they should’ve spent more time studying it apparently, because their plan went sideways.
“They were just supposed to use it on some of their own ships to make sure it worked. But somehow they miscalculated or something, because they pulled our fleet instead. So they tried again, and made things even worse when they pulled the Uhlinder’s fleet. At which point they decided they'd better turn off the jump-space pulling part of the array before they accidentally brought in some really heavy firepower by accident.
“In the big scheme of things, we’re really only dealing with a testing fleet’s large security force and an ops base— a base which is now destroyed thanks to the Admiral’s plan. And even though they currently outnumber us, against a full-force Imperial battle fleet with multiple Hyper Battle Machines and some heavy battleships, the enemy would get plastered. It was lucky for them they only got our fleet and a small attack fleet with the Uhlinder.”
“Why don’t they just call for reinforcements then?” Kesh asked.
Aaltskog said, “Well, even though they hurried up and stopped the array from pulling any other fleets, they have to keep the communications jamming turned on and the jump coil destroyer going because otherwise just as they bring reinforcements in, so can we.
“The last thing they want is for us to bring in more ships to destroy the array or maybe even capture it for our own use. So because of that, it’s keeping their own ships from calling for help and getting relief ships to jump in.”
“You said they picked this system. So they don’t actually come from here? From some planet we haven’t detected?” Feln asked.
“No,” Aaltskog shook her head. “This is just a place in the middle of nowhere to do a test. It shows how arrogant they were about the array working and their belief in their ‘gods’ passing down an ancient weapon for them to use— even though they don’t know how to use it completely or even who really built the array in the first place.
“They didn’t even care if their own jump coils got destroyed because the plan was just to jump into this stupid system with a security fleet and a base, fire up the array, do the test to pull in the other fleet, then turn off the array to finish the test. After that, another fleet would then come in with replacement coils, get everything fixed and then start using the array in earnest.
“But as soon as the test went wrong, that plan went out the window.” She laughed. “Wouldn’t it be a supreme irony if the array was actually built by the Ancients and that’s why this is all going so badly for the enemy?”
“Why haven’t they just sent more ships to check on the array even if it blows their jump coils? It’s been a while after all. Somebody should have noticed and sent a fleet or two to check on these guys and lend support even if it ends up being a one-way trip until they get repairs.” Feln said.
“The array’s jammer makes it impossible to jump here unless pulled. The same thing that screws up communications also totally messes with the plotting of jump drives. The funny thing is that their main fleet knows exactly where this system is. But they can’t jump here because as long as the array’s communications and sensor jammer is on, it will just redirect anyone trying to jump here to some other place. They can only get here by not jumping and traveling the old fashioned way of slogging through space, which of course, would probably take centuries. It must be driving them nuts!”
“If they know where this system is, does that mean you do too?”
“Yeah, technically, but I’m not really any kind of astronavigation specialist, so I can’t be certain exactly where we are. Obviously, it’s somewhere that we consider ‘jump over’ space, but that said, the array has actually pulled us much farther back— closer to where we started from. Remember we were almost at day ten of an eleven day jump past the Shoal Zone when we got pulled.”
“Right.”
“Well, the array is in one of the shoal regions really close to home. As in, about an hour’s jump.”
“What?” Feln was incredulous. “This thing managed to snatch us up from ten days’ jump away to bring us almost back home? Are you sure?”
“I know it’s crazy, but I‘m positive.”
“I don’t know what’s more frightening,” said Kesh. “The fact the enemy has a weapon like this so relatively close to our home system or that it can pull a fleet out of jump from such a vast distance away.”
“Yeah,” Aaltskog agreed. “It’s like if you have a house with some very thick woods in the back yard. And you don’t know there’s a hungry monster in the woods. And then that monster somehow manages to grab you while you’re on another continent.”
“Of course the Shoal Zone is massive and I think we all assumed we were somewhere toward the end of it considering our time in jump,” Kesh said. “But to find out we’re, as you say, in our own backyard… It’s very disconcerting that the enemy managed to get something like this so close to our space.”
“To be fair, it’s hard to actually patrol the Shoal Zone,” Feln said. “So many ships have been lost trying to do it. It’s just easier to have ships stationed near the border in case something emerges. Good idea obviously, because now we know something is in there waiting.”
“It also proves just how terrifying the weaponry used by the Ancients and their enemies were that they could attack our fleet from so far away,” Kesh said.
“It’s kind of like what the Corellans probably thought the first time the Empire used heavy railway artillery against them,” Feln said. “A bunch of wizards sitting around waiting to zap people with their wands and suddenly the Imperial Army is dropping shells on them fired from miles away."
“A solid observation,” Kesh agreed.
“When the enemy put the array here, they obviously had no idea what kind of range it had,” Aaltskog said. “To continue the property comparison, they thought they’d park it in our back yard and start pulling stuff from our front yard. Otherwise, they would have likely put it much farther out and still be able to grab ships from almost anywhere in Imperial space.
“I’m sure the test fleet they were trying to pull was much closer than we were and getting us instead came as a shock. That shock was even bigger when they realized just how far away they pulled us from. You really get the feeling that it’s like a monkey trying to figure out a laser pistol.”
“Getting back to the main issue,” Kesh said, “they’re trying to finish us off so they can then turn the array off completely and get themselves rescued. They would get away with killing us with the Empire never really knowing what happened to our fleets. We might have had a mishap or fought against pirates and lost or something similar.
“The people of the Empire would mourn never knowing they were actually under attack from a new enemy in a dangerously close vicinity. But as long as any o
f us are still alive, the enemy can’t turn the array off because not only could they send for help and receive it, but then so could we.”
“But these things communicate psychically and we can see they’re able to do so in this system. Can’t they just call out of the system with their minds?” Feln asked.
“No, because the array has a full communications jammer. The enemy at least seemed to figure out enough to make the array tuned mainly to stop the psychic races in the Empire for calling out for help. But I think a side effect is that while the enemy can still communicate in-system, it jams them from any intergalactic-distance telepathy. I think even in-system it jams them if they get far enough apart. That’s why their fleets don’t always coordinate perfectly. Again, this was just supposed to be a test. They were likely going to fine-tune things as they went and maybe figure out a way to not be jammed themselves as they went along.”
“So to sum up, this is a war of attrition hoping they can outlast us to be rid of any witnesses to what they they’re up to,” Kesh said. “And after they destroy us, they can then turn off the array completely and send for help to save themselves.”
“Yes sir, that’s it.”
“Then we will simply have to outlast them and destroy this array. We cannot allow the enemy to win. It’s not just our own lives at stake, but the safety of the Empire itself.”
“To do that, we have to know where the array actually is,” Feln said to Aaltskog. “Please tell me you have that information.”
Aaltskog smiled with a devilish grin, “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Chapter Four
Two days later, a plan had been formulated and the remnants of the Francescan forces moved out on what would be their last mission in the enemy system. Thanks to the information Aaltskog recovered from the captured enemy data, the Francescans now had a good idea of where to find the array. Win or lose, this was it.
There were still the issues of trying to navigate through space where their sensors were being jammed, but the enemy had left their own navigation beacons around, and Aaltskog knew their locations. The fleet would follow the beacons all the way back to the array and if luck was on their side, they would destroy it and call for help.
There was a near 100% chance that with the array destroyed, the enemy relief fleet—likely just biding its time and already on high alert—would then jump in and proceed to overwhelm the Francescans. But Kesh was betting that with two fleets suddenly missing, the Francescans themselves also had a relief force on standby just waiting for some clue of the whereabouts of the missing fleets. Thus, if they could hold off the inevitable onslaught from the enemy relief fleet long enough to get a distress call out and wait for rescue, there was the tiniest chance they might survive.
While the array’s close location to Francescan core space was troubling, it had the silver lining that a relief fleet could jump there much more quickly than if they were ten days’ jump away at their original location. Although a relief fleet could be raised near their original location at the far side of the shoals, being so close to home meant that there were much larger forces on tap.
It was a supremely risky plan, but with their backs against the wall, there was really nothing else they could do. Nobody in the fleet wanted to just sit still and wait for their demise. At least with this plan, they had more control of their destiny and if they went down, they’d go down as the attackers instead of the defenders.
The entirety of the Francescan forces were going. This meant not only the warships, but the support ships and even the colony. If they were able to keep the enemy at bay long enough for rescue to come, they wanted all of their people concentrated together for immediate aid instead of having to split their forces.
In actual strength of warships, it was a fleet in name only. Aside from the Tannhauser, there were five heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, one destroyer, five corvettes, one gunship, and one missile ship, the Artemis. Seventeen warships in all collated from two fleets when the original colonization fleet alone had 36 warships when they first set out. The Tannhauser’s lower hangar was virtually empty, being home to just three Aldens, four Dragonflies, and two Ravens, when it was equipped to deal with almost four times that amount.
Finally, the force contained a single Hyper Battle Machine that was missing one arm with part of its torso, and one of its eyes. For weapons, it had only a rapier originally designed for a different Hyper Battle Machine and a large pistol that had been cobbled together from the parts of a destroyed heavy cruiser’s main armament. Nearly all of its other weapons were either destroyed or no longer functioning.
As Denxeiter flew along next to the Tannhauser, it was joined by Valisia’s Alden. “Hey thanks again for letting me use Katashka’s sword,” Feln said.
“Well, it’s not like I own it or anything,” Valisia said. “I’m just glad Aaltskog could get it to work with Denxeiter.”
“I know you don’t own it, but you gave us your blessing and that counts for something.”
“Just promise you’ll use it to kill lots of those bastards.”
“Oh, you have my word on that.”
“So will you be able to do that tornado thing with it that Katashka did?”
Aaltskog’s voice spoke up from behind Feln. “No, I couldn’t make that happen. The ability has to be built into the Machine itself. So even though Denxeiter can swing the sword like normal, he doesn’t have the drivers, so to speak, to use the sword’s special abilities.”
Feln glanced behind him at Aaltskog sitting in the seat that she had the service crew install in Denxeiter’s cockpit. They’d done it while Feln was still sleeping after his rescue upon the fleet’s return. This was what Aaltskog meant before they entered the Tannhauser’s bridge a couple days ago— when she said she and Feln would both die together.
At first Feln was completely against the idea, but the more he thought about it, the more he became an enthusiastic supporter. He knew that if he died during this battle and Aaltskog survived, she’d still be caught in a fate worse than death. He couldn’t bear the thought of her killing herself or even worse, going on living, but in a self-destructive state where she would hurt herself.
Feln remembered the Companions he’d encountered who lost their Space Knights and he didn’t want that for Aaltskog. There was also the matter that with Aaltskog on board Denxeiter, he had her constant help in keeping the robot functioning in the best condition possible. If Denxeiter suffered any more grievous damage like losing another limb, Aaltskog would be there to instantly retune the systems so Feln could keep fighting. She could also act as a back up operations specialist so he could better concentrate on fighting using a Hyper Battle Machine with hardly any weapons.
But mostly he just wanted her near. She was the most important person in the universe to him and after the last mission where he had to lose contact with her for almost two weeks, he never wanted to be apart from her again. He felt that with Aaltskog at his side, he could do anything.
“So that huge gun the guys built for you. Will it really work?” Valisia asked.
“Yeah, it’ll do the job,” Aaltskog said. “I helped them with it so it’s tuned pretty well for Big Brother to use. Coming from a heavy cruiser, it’s about three times stronger than the usual pistols he carries, and I wish he had two hands to hold it, but I feel pretty good about it.”
“I’m glad you do,” Feln said. “I feel like this is gonna be like trying to shoot a high powered rifle one-handed.”
“It probably will be,” Aaltskog agreed, much to Feln’s worry. “But you’ll be fine.”
“So Katashka’s sword and that gun is all you’ve got?” Valisia continued.
“We might be able to activate Durandal once if we’re lucky and there’s a 10% chance we can fire a Burst Slammer shot at 25% strength,” Aaltskog said. “So yeah, for all intents and purposes, this gun and sword are all we’ve got.”
“Damn. Well, I’ll try to keep you covered anyway I can,” Valisia said.
“Much appreciated,” Feln said. “But if things get too hot, don’t worry about us. You’ve gotta survive and get back to your parents so they don’t lose both their children. And you need to be able to dedicate this sword as a memorial to Katashka.”
“Again, I don’t own the sword. It’s not mine to dedicate.”
“I think between me and the Admiral, we can get something worked out,” Feln said.
Valisia smiled and said softly, “Thank you.” She paused before saying, “Aaltskog, please don’t be mad at me for saying this, but Feln, I wish things could’ve continued between you and Katashka and you guys could have stayed together. I would be honored to have you as my brother.”
“I’m not mad at all,” Aaltskog said gently.
“And I am your brother,” Feln said.
“Right,” said Aaltskog. “We’re both your family, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks guys,” Valisia said before her monitor window went dark. Feln figured she needed some quite time before the battle.
“That poor girl,” Aaltskog said. “We do need to take care of her.”
“We will,” Feln said. They were both only a few years older than Valisia but without Katashka she seemed so lost. Strange considering how much Valisia had accomplished on her own to get out from Katashka’s shadow, but Feln could also understand how hard it would be to lose such a strong sisterly presence.
Feln’s parents had always been supportive of him and given him a loving home. He was sad to leave them when he and Aaltskog departed for the Space Knight Academy. But there was also a level of detachment between himself and them that he’d seen other children not have with their parents. When his body received its Blessing, that detachment seemed to grow. He knew they loved him and he loved them. He knew that he would be devastated when they would one day grow old and die and they would never get over losing him if he died in combat. But there was still always something missing. It wasn't anybody’s fault really, it was just how things were.
Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter Page 28