A Pride of Lions

by Mark Iles

  “Oh, my God,” the pilot gasped, sinking further back into his seat, his expression mirroring the others on the bridge.

  In stunned silence they stared at the huge fleet of unknown vessels circling Olympus, the hundreds of smaller craft shuttling back and forth like a trail of ants to the world below.

  “Captain, we’re getting a short-range news feed from the planet. There’s no long-range comms at all.”

  “Okay, Navs; put it on screen, now!”

  As the news feed leapt into the forward view screen, the bridge crew took deep involuntary breaths, for it showed soldiers and civilians desperately firing their weapons against waves of insect-like aliens. They were huge monstrous things that looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a giant spider. Despite being slaughtered in their thousands, the creatures kept on coming. Then their sheer numbers breached the human defences and they began tearing the defenders limb from limb. The news feed cut and switched to another, showing the same thing happening all over the planet.

  There was an unearthly silence on the bridge; no one said a word. They didn’t need to.

  “Prepare for combat,” Kotes breathed at last.

  Even as he spoke several of the smaller alien vessels circling the planet broke away and sped towards them. Klaxons started to blare and the walls flashed an intermittent red.

  “There’s a message coming in from Admiral Black, Sir.”

  “Put him through.”

  Black’s face instantly replaced the news feed. There was a shocked but determined look on his face. “Kotes, I’ve no idea what these things are but there’s far too many of them for us to handle. Our long-range comms are being jammed and we need to get the word out quickly. If these things are as formidable as they look then we haven’t a chance, they’ve already obliterated the planet’s defences and that tells us a lot. I want you to break away, make a run for it, and ensure the news gets back to the Admiralty. Let them know we’re not alone out here anymore, nor are we the biggest bully on the block. They need to know everything that we do, and fast. This could be the beginning of a major assault and God knows where else they might be hitting us, even now. We’ll try to hold them off while you make your escape. Good luck, Captain.”

  “Sir, I...”

  Black’s eyes narrowed. “That’s an order. If you don’t get away and warn Command then other worlds will be taken by surprise, and billions more lives lost. Now get the hell out of here, Captain. You’ve a job to do, and so have we.”

  “Yes, Sir: good luck, Admiral.”

  Kotes watched as the old man nodded and the view screen changed back to the news feed. “Turn us about, immediately, and prepare to jump.”

  “The incoming ships are opening fire, Sir!”

  “Captain, look, the Kittihawk and the Victorious...”

  But Kotes was already watching. The ships were being torn apart by beam weapons that sliced through the shields as if they didn’t exist, while clouds of missiles burst against the shields until they failed. Then the missiles penetrated and burst in eye-searing blooms on the ship’s hulls. He could imagine the fires raging through the ships, the sickening screams as people died and the thunder of explosions as the weapons hit and the ships broke up. The flotilla fought a desperate rearguard action, only to be slaughtered before his eyes. In what seemed like moments the once daunting ships were nothing but debris, dust and body parts drifting on the stellar wind.

  Kotes leant back in his chair. Feeling tears gathering in his eyes, he blinked to clear them. It wouldn’t do for the crew to see him so distressed, and as they started to turn to face him he did the only thing he could.

  “Jump,” he ordered.

  * * * *

  Commodore Van Pluy sat behind his brushed alloy desk, lit a cigar and puffed furiously for a few moments, before picking up the file yet again. A woman’s face stared back at him from the photo imprinted onto the paper on the top right hand corner. Selena Dillon, he remembered her well. He flicked through the contents once more; she was definitely the woman for the job. Drawing on the cigar, he began to read aloud to himself.

  “Lieutenant Commander Selena Dillon, PC090336. Service was offered as an alternative to public execution, following a failed assassination attempt against her planetary ruler. Military record impressive, graduated top of her class and promoted to ensign; excellent record at Officer Training School with rapid promotion to 1st and then 2nd Lieutenant, before being promoted to Lieutenant Commander on completion of command course. Distinguished service in prior posting led to...”

  It was obvious to Van Pluy that Selena still had strong feelings about her past, although she never mentioned it. Her record showed exactly what he expected, that she was an excellent and promising officer – one of the best in the fleet. His concerns about her attempting revenge on those responsible for her being here, and dragging the service into disrepute, were moot at this moment. He knew full well that anyone’s chances of surviving this war were slim, let alone those actually fighting it. As he recalled, she was a bright young thing who’d run rings around her instructors and paid them back in spades for the indignities suffered by her and her teammates during basic training.

  He lifted his crystal brandy glass and swirled the warm amber liquid beneath his nose, breathing in the heady fragrance before taking a sip. Savouring the taste, he swallowed then took another puff of his cigar and continued to read.

  “Following officer training, Dillon was drafted to an anti-piracy unit guarding one of the major space lanes. The unit consisted of two V-Class pursuit ships. Frustrated at her lack of success, Dillon quite rightly deduced that she had an informant onboard. She finally turned the tables on the pirates by feeding the informer false information. Identifying the pirate base, she then launched an attack against it, capturing numerous intact vessels and their crews. She also found local planetary dignitaries in the process of buying the pirates’ goods and executed all those concerned on the spot, including the dignitaries. The remaining pirates surrendered and Dillon had them transported to Andros Prime, where they were convicted of the crimes stated and drafted into the Penal Battalions. Within a short period of time, piracy in that sector ceased to exist

  “Having confirmation it was her Executive Officer, Lieutenant Sharon Potts, who had been selling her out, Dillon spread rumours that Potts had betrayed the pirates to save herself, and promptly abandoned her ashore when they left. The remains of Potts were found a short time later.

  “Drafted back to the citadel as an instructor, Selena’s natural sense of aggression and fair play made her one of the best,” Van Pluy continued. “Through it all, she never forgot those friends she’d made, and lost, while in training. She became a formidable instructor, with a strong sense of compassion. The pass rate of her students was impressive, even if she did have to break a few limbs here and there. At the outbreak of the war, Selena pushed for a return to active service and was instrumental in successful attacks on several enemy strongholds.”

  The Commodore put the file beside the ash tray and began shuffling through his papers, making notes for the coming brief.

  The small screen on the right side of his desk flicked into life, showing MacMillan, his secretary for over twenty years.

  “Lieutenant Commander Dillon is waiting up-top, Sir.”

  “Thank you, Emma. Send her down, please.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  * * * *

  Selena sat impatiently on the waiting room’s sofa, eager to find out what the old man wanted.

  The robosec, who dealt with all enquires in the waiting room, turned to her and said: “You can go down now, Ma’am, but please ensure that you leave any weapons here.”

  Selena entered the lift and felt it drop several floors. When the door opened again she entered a small room in which a real human secretary sat behind a small nameplate, staring down onto her desk. Selena knew instantly that she was being scanned.

  “Despite your instructions, I see you have a sm
all pistol attached to your right ankle. Would you mind removing it?” MacMillan asked.

  When Selena complied and laid the compact weapon on the desk, Emma gestured for her to go through the second polished metal door.

  “Good morning, Commodore,” she said, coming to attention and saluting briskly.

  “Ah, Dillon, take a seat, won’t you?”

  “Thank you, Sir.” As she sank into one of several antique real leather chairs, Selena looked about the room, noting the books lining the walls and the pictures of various star systems and the occasional one of him standing with senior officers, sports stars and family.

  He looked up at her briefly and then continued reading, aloud. “Dillon has occasionally been criticised for using overly ruthless methods and not always following orders to the letter. Despite being a first rate tactician it’s considered she sometimes drives her troops too hard, neglecting the food and rest they need to achieve her goals. She’s led her men in suicidal attacks, when other methods might have achieved the same objective. However, it appears she always gets the best from her troops, who hold her in very high regard.

  “Do you have anything to add, Dillon?”

  “A leader has to act quickly, Sir, and be decisive. As you know, I’m not one for fannying around. If I was, I wouldn’t be the leader they say I am, now would I?”

  The Commodore leant back in his chair, dumped the file on his desk and blew a lungful of smoke at her. “It also says here that you’ve been known to shoot your prisoners. Is that true?”

  “Not completely. I hang them sometimes, or cut their throats to save ammo; never denied it. There are times when you can’t afford to get bogged down by prisoners, and there are other times that they just plain deserve it.”

  To her surprise, the Commodore turned and threw the report into the waste-bin next to his desk, then eyed her up and down. “I’ll be frank, shall I, Lieutenant Commander? You puzzle me. It’s been suggested that when you leave the forces you’ll probably go back to try to finish what you started back home on Capulet, to get even with your former adversaries as it were. So take it under advisement, we’re up to your little plan. One point of interest to me is that it says here you’ve already accumulated enough points to warrant discharge before your contract completes, yet you haven’t taken this opportunity. Why exactly is that?”

  Selena studied him for a moment before she replied. “Maybe your reports are wrong, Sir. Or perhaps it’s too early and I need to wait a while. Then again I might just like it in the Regiments and, after all, we don’t exactly have a home to go to, do we? Those so-called geniuses of yours have been known to be wrong before. When the time’s right, I’ll take my discharge, Sir. Until then, here I stay.”

  “Still a lot more bad guys to kill out there, huh, Dillon?”

  “Something like that, Sir, yes.”

  Van Pluy pressed a button on his desk and turned to face the wall to his right. The wall became a screen on which a diagram appeared instantly. “Recognise the system, Dillon?”

  “No, Sir, I don’t.”

  “That’s hardly surprising. This picture’s hundreds of years old and shows one of the Red List, which are off limit systems as you know. We’ve been unable to determine exactly why it was placed off limits, as the records are lost, but it’s on the very edge of our settled territories. We’ve also determined that it’s the home of our enemy.”

  “The Manta?” Selena exploded, jumping to her feet. “Even if it’s on the fringes, and a Red, we should have known about this a long time ago!”

  Van Pluy settled back into his chair and puffed away at his cigar, the ash dissolving in the air. “True, but there you go. We can only assume it was placed off limits due to the system’s hellish meteor clouds. It could also be that ships were lost there and the meteors blamed, although that’s only a guess. We recently captured some intelligence that suggested the enemy’s home might be a lot nearer than we originally thought, and we were looking for it when, about a month ago, one of our spy craft spotted an enemy cruiser and three destroyers leaving this system. We’ve had it under constant surveillance ever since of course, but nothing else has been in or out. It might be that they picked up our recent activity and are keeping a low profile.”

  “Why would they do that? We’ve lost just about every space battle with them and many of our worlds have fallen. They’ve nothing to be afraid of. They attack, we fight and die and then our survivors pull back. That’s all we seem to do.”

  “A whole world’s hard to protect, Dillon. But our position is worse than you know. We’ve lost over half of the fleet so far, and we can’t protect the few worlds we have left. With the state of our navy we have little choice but to fall back and abandon the colonies as they fall, and we’re losing more ships all the time. At this rate they’ll be knocking on Earth’s door next year.”

  Selena gaped at him. “Sir, you can’t be serious!”

  “Oh, I am; deadly serious. Because that’s exactly how it is. We can’t build ships quickly enough. The enemy vessels outgun and out-manoeuvre us. If we do actually win a battle the next thing you know is that more of them arrive and we’re back to square one. Their ships are incredibly powerful and we just don’t have the means to stop them. Yes, we have new weapons and shields being developed but we don’t know yet if they will be as effective as we hope. It’s got to the stage where when they over-run a planet we have to destroy it — often with our people still fighting there, rather than allow the enemy to have it.”

  Selena remained silent, thinking it through. She stared at the star map, instantly transported back to her school days and of being taught of mankind’s search for other intelligent life forms. She remembered the reports that caused so much terror when the first ruins of an alien civilisation were found; it was around the time she’d finished school and had just been inducted into the freedom fighters. It was the search for these others, known as the ForeRunners, that had led to the development of the RoboRecons, the hundreds of unmanned automated ships that were sent out to roam the stars in an endless quest for alien life. But nothing further had been discovered, until the Manta appeared and began to destroy everything human.

  “People were split into two camps,” Selena said. “Those who relished the idea of meeting and sharing knowledge with alien races, and those who were terrified at the very thought.”

  “What you don’t know, Dillon, is that records found in those cities led us to others hidden on worlds we’ve long since claimed as our own. Some of these belonged to the Manta. It appears they could have been hibernating for thousands of years and we woke them up, and now they want their empire back.”

  Selena stared at him, not quite sure what to say. Then she asked, “Sir, are you saying that the Manta are the others?”

  “I’m going to come to that in a minute or two, but for now let’s just leave it at as no they’re not,” he replied. “But think about it, if we’re right about this, it would make us the invaders and not the Manta. What do you think we would do, if we were in their shoes?”

  Van Pluy opened a drawer and pulled out a silicon wafer and tossed it over to her. “Study this,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, I’ve seen it more times than I care to mention. It’s the plan for an attack on the aliens’ home system. A mission I intend you to lead.”

  Selena felt a surge of excitement. She could do this, she could stop the war!

  Breathlessly, she fed the chip into the reading slot atop the desk, her eyes widening as the plan unravelled onto the big screen in front of her. It only took about ten minutes to watch the whole thing; then she ran it through again. As she sat back and considered what she’d seen, the Commodore re-entered the room.

  “Well, Lieutenant Commander, what do you think?”

  “It’s possible, Sir.”

  “It better be. Some of the worlds under our command are already withdrawing their ships from the fleet, having seen we’ve started to abandon the outer co
lonies, and who can blame them? They’re returning to defend their own, making things for humanity in general even worse. The enemy attacks are increasing, Dillon. We’re stretched to the limit and fighting on far too many fronts. Something has to give and when it does we’re going to be in for a whole lot of trouble. So don’t tell me it’s possible; tell me it’s going to happen, that you’re going to go out there and blow them all to Hell. You got me?”

  “Absolutely, Sir.”

  “Good. Now we know where they are, at least we have a fighting chance, but we have to act immediately. If we leave it much longer, we’ll lose our attack potential forever and that’ll be it, game over. Now, we need to discuss your crew.”

  “I want Kes Phillips with me, he’s a good man.”

  “Yes, I thought you would. I noticed you’d seconded him, once you got your commission. I’ve already had him assigned to the team.”

  Selena studied the Commodore as he fiddled with the chips and inserted another one. He’d changed a lot since she’d first seen him in that tent, so many years ago. The once distinguished looking grey hair had now turned pure white, and his brow was heavily furrowed. Lines marched across his face, making him into an old man, one tired of sleepless nights and constant worry. A far cry from that gallant figure who’d pinned the ensign badge on her lapel at the end of her basic training.

  The Commodore pressed a button and the star system on the screen disappeared, to be replaced by a holographic image of a slightly built man in his late thirties. He was thin faced, small and bespectacled.

  “Arthur Jones,” Van Pluy stated. “Not the most imposing figure. He was born in the city of Los Angeles, on Earth. He studied at the Titan University of Engineering, where his brilliance in robotics led to major breakthroughs in that field when he was only eighteen. Some years later he married a lovely girl, by all accounts. Sadly she was murdered. He lost the plot completely and went on the rampage. He kidnapped the Chief of Police and threatened to kill him, unless he revealed who was responsible for his wife’s death. He even cut off the man’s thumbs before he was captured, stopped and sentenced to servitude. Present rank, Ensign.” Van Pluy stopped talking and turned to her. “I know this fellow. He’s damned good at what he does. Once he gets an idea into his head, he sticks with it until he cracks it, or at least proves the problem’s insolvable; even if it takes him years. Persistence is his middle name. He’s been working for us on the shield improvements and weapon systems. He’s to be your Chief Engineer and Science Officer.”