“Now, now, now!” ordered Kristie, gripping the left arm of his chair.
The first thraceium-laced nuclear missile streaked from tube one and began an evasive meandering course towards the supercarrier’s stern. Its brethren were soon hot on its trail, racing furiously on their own independent tracks. Tempest opened her starboard cargo bay doors and made a hard, plunging turn to port. Simultaneously, four nearly continuous streams of projectiles erupted from her railguns.
Immediately the supercarrier’s point defense systems began firing, lighting up the surrounding space with flashes from hundreds of energy weapons in an attempt to shoot down the approaching missiles. Its larger anti-ship weapons discharged enormous spheres of superheated plasma, but the Tempest was already a burning streak entering Entropia’s upper atmosphere.
“Twenty-five seconds to first missile shield impact, Captain,” reported Weps. “And the scalies can’t shoot worth sh—”
“Thank you, Weps,” Kristie cut him off. It was too soon for any celebrating. People were still dying down there and the package remained in jeopardy.
The projectiles from the railguns made impressive impacts against the Triven shields, but the effect was superficial. None of them were getting through yet.
“Eight seconds, sir.”
Kristie watched impassively as the battle unfolded. The tactical hologram revealed the juggernaut sluggishly trying to maneuver out of the way of his missiles. But the Navy frigates had it boxed in on either side and were hammering away with their own torpedoes and railguns. With enough applied kinetic energy, the Triven shields would eventually fail, allowing the Navy boys a clear shot at the more vulnerable parts of the supercarrier. He could not stay and help, though; that was not his mission. But he had done his part.
“All right, boys, your job is about to get a little easier,” he muttered to himself.
“Captain, we are at flank speed heading directly for Obsidian,” Nav reported.
“Very well. Eyes, report all atmospheric contacts, please.”
“Aye, sir. Sensors are negative at time.”
A brilliant corona of light flashed into life as the first missile hit the Triven shields, causing them to briefly expand with the sudden forceful injection of energy, then collapse under the weight of the tremendous concussion. But while the shields’ radius contracted tightly around the ship, they still held, continuing to deflect the railgun projectiles.
The second missile died in a flurry of point defense energy beams, but the third found its mark. Strained Triven shields flickered sporadically, leaving a gap through which the fourth missile flew and quickly struck dead center in the supercarrier’s engine cluster. A final dissipating aurora attested to the ship’s total shield collapse.
“That got him!” exclaimed Weps, quite pleased with himself.
“Confirmed, Captain: The supercarrier’s shields are down and we’ve inflicted some serious damage. But she is still underway and I’m detecting a build-up in her drive matrix,” added Eyes.
“Flash to the TRIPWIRE force. We’ve done all we can. It’s up to them now,” replied Kristie.
“Affirmative, sir,” answered Eyes. “And Captain, I’m detecting several Komodo-class assault dropships making attack runs on Obsidian. Their defense automates appear to be offline.”
A voice crackled again from his chair comm, “Makos have launched and are en route to engage those bogies, Captain.”
“Time to intercept?” queried Kristie.
“Approximately four minutes, sir,” answered Weps.
Kristie swore inwardly.
“Maintain battle stations,” he ordered. “We’re going in hot.”
15
Richard Avery vowed that if he got out of this alive, he was getting in shape no matter what the cost. His breathing was labored as he struggled to keep up with the seemingly tireless BLUE MONARCH Anton Correlli, who maintained a brisk pace despite his extra burden of the now fully awake and thrashing Subject A.
His thoughts were of his son, Emerson. Where was he? Was he okay?
Please, dear God, let him be alive! he thought desperately.
After his wife had died of cancer, he had tried like any single parent to meet his child’s needs. But deep down he knew he had fallen considerably short. Now he was afraid of not being there for Emerson ever again, or worse, losing his only son. The thought of him killed or captured by these rapacious Triven drove him forward. The risks of working so close to Triven space had been an abstract thing; he had let the military worry about that. And now here he was, running for his life and unable to locate Emerson.
“C’mon, doctor, please try and keep up,” said Correlli, pausing to let everyone catch up. He was not even breathing hard.
“Easy ...” Avery doubled over trying to catch his breath. “Easy for you to say, Lieutenant.”
Subject A hissed and growled, baring its canines as much as the muzzle restraint would let it, and looked Avery directly in the eye. Avery ignored it.
“Colonel?” yelled Correlli.
“I’m here,” replied Thorsten, hard on their heels. He was breathing hard, too, Avery noticed, but not as hard as he was. “Don’t yell inside my head,” he exhaled. “It hurts!”
“Sorry, Colonel,” and Correlli meant it. “We’re just about there.”
“Just hold onto your datapad, Rich,” Thorsten jabbed.
“Yes, yes!” Avery snapped. He just happened to lock his datapad down in the Core the day the Triven chose to attack. Did life really turn on such seemingly innocuous twists of fate?
Avery inhaled deeply and blew his breath out.
“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, turning to go.
“We just need to head down this corridor to the main tube station, then we can link up with the rest of our forces and get the hell out of here,” said Thorsten.
Correlli adjusted Subject A, who let out a high-pitched shriek unlike Avery had ever heard before.
From across the darkened Core room, a deep, menacing bellow answered in response.
Correlli did an immediate about-face, deftly dropped Subject A onto the floor and checked his visor for targets. His assault rifle automatically began calculating elevation and distance based on the data feed from his helmet sensors.
Two yellow eyes emerged from the opposite entrance and rose slowly higher and higher, finally stopping at what the visor indicated was 3.048 meters tall. Recommended target zones flashed on the silhouette outlined before his eyes.
“Colonel, doctor,” he said slowly. “Get behind me.”
The two men quickly obeyed and Thorsten checked his sidearm’s chamber. He was nearly out.
The dim light slowly revealed the monstrous shape of a Triven warrior of cyclopean proportions. Correlli had fought large Triven troops before, but this one was bigger than anything he had ever encountered.
For some reason, an obscure piece of ancient scripture filled his mind:
When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing.
The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin ...
Arrows do not make him flee ...
He laughs at the rattling of the lance.
Nothing on earth is his equal—
a creature without fear ...
It roared a terrifying roar and began to charge.
Correlli thumbed his assault rifle to full auto and poured bullets into the hulking shape. Thorsten fired from around Correlli’s right side.
The beast’s shields flashed and flickered with the impacts of their combined ballistics, but neither Correlli’s nor Thorsten’s weapons would penetrate.
Subject A writhed furiously in an attempt to break its bonds, while Richard Avery tried vainly to stop it.
“Colonel, I’m reading its shields are more than double Triven standard!” yelled Correlli. He switched from ballistics to particle beam and tried to focus its full energy on one spot, rapidly draining
the capacitor.
“Options?!” screamed Thorsten, whose sidearm suddenly went silent. “I’m out!”
The particle beam’s piercing whine also went dead. Correlli looked at Thorsten.
“Only one option now, Colonel,” said Correlli, pulling his combat knife from its hidden torso sheath.
Without warning, he began sprinting towards the charging Triven warrior. The BLUE MONARCH was a formidable man, but even Thorsten could see in the poor light that the Triven would outmatch him easily.
“He’s insane!” thought Thorsten out loud. Get the package off Entropia! came the mental response.
“Adriene!” Richard Avery’s shout pulled Thorsten’s attention away from the impending collision. Subject A had freed its arms and was attempting to remove its muzzle and leg restraints. Avery was trying to avoid the talons raking at him. Thorsten started towards him, but cast a backward glance over his right shoulder just in time to see Correlli take a flying leap towards their attacker.
The giant Triven hit the BLUE MONARCH with a herculean backhand, sending him crashing into a bay of computer consoles that quickly died under his impact. It continued its advance on Thorsten and Avery, bellowing in response to Subject A’s shrieks. Correlli rolled off the computer consoles and was swiftly back on his feet. His vision blurred momentarily, but he shook it off and again sprinted after the saurian behemoth. Its focus on Subject A gave Correlli another chance to approach it from the left side, though with much greater caution.
Closing the distance quickly, he grabbed the beast’s muscled left arm and held on tightly. He could feel the sharp electrified pinpricks of its shield barrier, but there was nothing he could do except endure it. He plunged his knife down with all of his strength into the Triven’s left shoulder, but its thick natural armor deflected most of Correlli’s attack. His blade barely drew any blood.
The Triven punched him in the face with its right arm, shattering his helmet’s tactical display and driving fragments of it just below his eyes. Correlli’s grip weakened and the Triven shook him off, sending him careening into the wall.
Thorsten’s hesitation allowed Subject A to remove its muzzle and kick off its leg restraints. It stood there momentarily, then began to advance on the two men. Suddenly it stopped, cocking its head to the left as if listening for something. Avery heard it, then Thorsten. Footfalls!
With Subject A in front of him and rapidly approaching footfalls to the left, Thorsten became only dimly aware of Correlli’s continuing struggle with the Triven shock trooper, now only meters away from them.
“Dad?!”
“Emerson?!” answered Richard Avery in disbelief.
“Dad!!” Emerson Avery came running around the corner.
“Look out, son!!”
Emerson skidded to a halt directly in front of Subject A.
They stared at each other nearly eye-to-eye. Subject A hissed and tweeted at Emerson. Having never seen an actual Triven before and not knowing what else to do, the boy stood stock still. Richard Avery prepared to tackle Emerson while Thorsten moved to smash Subject A’s head with the butt of his empty sidearm. But with one quick motion, Subject A slashed Emerson’s left cheek, leaving a ragged three-inch gash, and dodged Thorsten’s swinging attack.
Tearing through the last obstacles to its freedom, Subject A raced past the trio and scampered up and onto the back of the Triven shock trooper now towering over all of them. Thorsten looked frantically around. Correlli lay in a crumpled heap against another computer console. His helmet was missing and blood was flowing profusely from his forehead. His hexagonal armor was rent in several places, and as far as they could see, he was not moving.
The three watched as Subject A chirped and whistled to the immense Triven warrior, which chirped and whistled back, making sounds that seemed incongruous with its bulk and ferocity. Pivoting on its muscled hind legs, the giant Triven soldier turned and began running back the way it had come, leaving those that remained utterly shaken.
Thorsten quickly ran over to Correlli.
Richard Avery moved to give Emerson a crushing hug, but was surprised when his son stepped back from him.
“Son?”
“Dad,” Emerson said wearily, “I can barely hear you and my back is full of glass. I just didn’t want you to push on it, that’s all.”
Richard Avery struggled to find the right words. Glass?
“I’ll be okay, Dad,” said Emerson, and he gave his father a tight hug, collapsing from fatigue into his arms.
“I love you, son,” Richard Avery said softly, but Emerson could not hear him.
Thorsten quietly interrupted.
“Correlli’s hurt pretty bad, but he says he can walk out on his own. I told him to forget the John Wayne crap and let me call some medics, but he won’t have any of it. Pumped himself full of stims.”
“Who’s John Wayne?”
“Never mind. We have no idea how many more Triven are down here, so let’s move out!” he ordered.
Correlli staggered up, wheezing and making horrible gurgling sounds when he breathed, but resolutely proceeding under his own power.
Thorsten took one last look across the Core.
“That was too damn close,” he said to himself.
16
Obsidian’s central tube station had transformed from an ocean of panic and chaos into a deep pool of black stillness. Emergency lighting flickered along the edges of the cavernous space, but the feeble light was easily devoured by the ravenous dark. The dead slept in the lightless embrace of their new tomb, and for the nearly dead it did not matter. No help would come for them. But for the living who arrived after the climax of the battle, it was an unsettling welcome.
Thorsten tentatively made his way forward, trying to avoid stepping on the darker shapes splayed out on the ground before him. He could see exactly where the short tunnel to the subterranean launch bay was and angled towards it.
“C’mon, you two, stay close,” he whispered to the Averys. They were trudging loudly, too loudly, along behind him. He shifted his newly acquired assault rifle to a better position in his arms and scanned the void around him. Where is everyone?
“It’s okay, Colonel,” Correlli husked through his stim-induced euphoria. “There’s nothing to shoot here.” He had grabbed a new tactical helmet from the weapons locker where he and Thorsten had reloaded. Its holographic heads-up display found nothing of note and simply cycled on continuous standby. “But I’m not picking up any chatter on the tacnet either,” he cautioned.
“Nothing?”
“Zero comms, sir.”
“Well, if they couldn’t hold out, they’re long gone by now,” Thorsten said. “Or dead.”
“Are you saying we could be stuck here?” asked Richard Avery, who was feeling every ache in his body.
“If all the evac shuttles bugged out or were destroyed, we may be here a while.”
“Don’t worry doctor, we’re not marooned,” Correlli chimed in. “I may be the only BLUE MONARCH dirtside, but we’re still valuable assets.”
“Oh ... well that’s reassuring. I ...” Richard Avery suddenly slipped and fell, taking his son down with him. His hands slid into something that felt wet and pulpy. Emerson let out a strangled yelp and felt every shard of glass in his back shift position. Correlli was quickly standing over them despite his injuries, and helped lift both of them back to their feet.
“I’m sorry,” the senior Avery offered, clearly exhausted. He wiped the palms of his hands vigorously on his pants.
“It’s okay, Rich, we’ve had a long day,” said Thorsten, who had backtracked slightly and was now standing with the rest of the group.
For Emerson, everything still sounded like a pillow was clamped tightly around his head, but the ringing in his ears was finally beginning to diminish. He spotted his father’s datapad by the pale light of its display. Picking it up, he saw an interface in a programming language he had never seen before—and he knew several. The letters DARAC stood
out prominently in the left-hand corner of the screen, but everything else looked alien to him. Correlli, Thorsten, and his dad were still conversing quietly, so he continued scanning the intriguing script.
At the bottom of the pad was a blank field with a flashing cursor. The word “QUERY” was highlighted next to the blank field. On a whim, he typed in: “Where is Ashley Reed?” A small progress bar appeared and began to fill rapidly from left to right. Quickly the bar flashed, disappeared, and a small text answer presented itself in the query field:
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER
Undeterred, Emerson tried again: “Determine location of Reed, Ashley S. ID number 521368905.”
Cerulean Rising - Part I: Beginnings Page 5