The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7)

by Richard Sanders

  “Aye, sir, relaying commands,” said the Defense chief.

  The battle continued in this fashion, the enemy capital ships occasionally striking them with their beam weapons, but otherwise holding fire, waiting as their swarms of drones slowly ate away at the Hyperion’s armor, and that of the remaining four other capital ships.

  “Get a message to Sir Arkwright,” said Ravinder, “Let him know that our position here is about to fall,” she said. “Ask him to command more reinforcements to these coordinates. Otherwise the defense formation will break again, and the Victory will be exposed.”

  “Yes, sir,” said her comms chief. “Relaying message.”

  As the battle against the drones continued, and the Ops and Defense teams worked together to try and keep enough power in the shields to deflect the occasional beam weapon strikes, Ravinder watched the tactical display. It had adjusted its zoom to focus on their immediate attack range, and so she had a much better picture now of the battle surrounding her. The drones were too small to be indicated by lights, however the five blue lights, representing the Hyperion and the four allied capital ships, quickly became four blue lights. Then three.

  It’s working, she thought. Despite all our guns, without fighter support, we cannot stop these drones. She suspected the Hyperion had so far survived purely by the fact that it had a superior outfit of armor compared to the other capital ships. It would take the drones longer to eat it away, but there was no stopping them.

  “Sir, the drone strikes are too many,” said the Defense chief, as if reading her thoughts. “Our gun crews are attempting to destroy them or drive them off, but they are elusive targets and there are blind spots where we have no weapons coverage. At least as long as we hold so many of our guns in reserve for missiles that, so far at least, have failed to appear.”

  Ravinder considered it. Perhaps the enemy did not intend to lock and fire missiles at the Hyperion and the lone remaining allied capital ship. Perhaps she was holding some of her guns in reserve for no purpose at all, allowing the drones to find spots to attack from which the Hyperion could not, or, at least, was not returning fire. Then again, if she commanded one-hundred percent of the operational guns to deal with the drone problem, she would be leaving the Hyperion exposed to missile attack, and it might not be possible for her to redirect the guns fast enough to intercept any missiles launched her way.

  It was a dilemma. Or, at least, it seemed to be, until several alarms started going off, sending everyone on the bridge into an even more heightened state of panic.

  “What is that?” demanded Ravinder.

  “Hull breach,” said the Defense chief. “Deck four, starboard bow.”

  “Make that hull breaches plural,” said the Ops chief. “My sensors show escaping atmosphere occurring in multiple places on the Hyperion.”

  “I confirm,” said the Defense chief. “We have multiple hull breaches. Deck four, starboard bow, deck sixteen, portside stern, deck eleven, starboard side…”

  “The drones are not relenting in their attack,” said the Ops chief.

  “I am detecting further damage to our hull and armor at…twenty-six points. Another hull breach is imminent.”

  They are shredding us apart, thought Ravinder. The Hyperion was a tremendously powerful warship, like a mighty bear, and yet it was being slowly and methodically executed by countless bee stings.

  “Are the hull breaches contained?” asked Ravinder. “Or are we coming apart?”

  “All affected decks report that emergency hatches have slammed into place and every hull breach has been contained,” said the Comms chief, whose staff were busy at their headsets, no doubt collecting reports from all of the Hyperion’s many decks. “Unfortunately there was no time to evacuate the affected areas,” said the Comms chief grimly. “The automated system has contained the hull breaches, for the time being, but an estimated seventy-nine crew and soldiers were lost.”

  Blown out into space, thought Ravinder. What a terrible way to go. A fate they all might share, and soon, if something was not done.

  “Divert all of the guns,” said Ravinder, unwilling to allow her ship to be destroyed by these drones. “Command every operation gun and every gunner that their priority task is to eliminate those damned drones.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Defense chief, whose staff quickly got to work relaying the command to each of the gun crews.

  “And what about the threat of inbound missiles?” asked the Ops chief.

  “Do your scanners show any inbound missiles?” asked Ravinder, unable to keep a tone of annoyance from her voice, though her frustration was not so much with her Ops chief as it was with the whole damned situation.

  “No, no, sir, I do not. Not at this time,” said the Ops chief.

  Ravinder nodded. “Good. Should that change, alert me at once.”

  This adjustment in tactics appeared to work; no new hull breaches occurred during the next few seconds, and her Ops chief was able to confirm that the number of drones attacking them had been reduced, and more of them were being destroyed by the second.

  Ravinder put herself at ease regarding the drones swarming the Hyperion, at least for the moment, and redirected her attention to the force of enemy capital ships that remained not far away, still within weapons range, apparently watching as their drones did their dirty work for them.

  Once we finish off these drones, thought Ravinder, how in hell am I going to deal with forty-something enemy capital ships? And all we are is one dreadnought and a…she paused her thought, realizing suddenly that there were no longer two blue lights holding the position. Now there was only one. At some point during the fighting, within the last few seconds, the other capital ship had been destroyed. Leaving the Hyperion alone again. And this time no reinforcements seemed to be coming. She had sent her urgent recommendation to Sir Arkwright himself, asking for significant forces to be redirected to this position, but, by the fact that no reinforcements had arrived, and none could be seen on the tactical display, Ravinder took that to mean that none was coming.

  It’s just us versus them, she thought. One dreadnought, badly scarred, against a host of capital ships and several scores of drones. Dammit. Damn it all.

  “Sir!” her Ops chief yelled, sounding extremely alarmed. “It has happened!”

  “Missiles?” asked Ravinder, knowing that was the likeliest answer, and the least welcome.

  “Yes, sir,” said the Ops chief. “Three dozen missiles have been launched, all on an intercept course with this vessel.”

  She felt her heart in her throat. Three dozen! She doubted the Hyperion could withstand one missile in its current state—provided the enemy had chosen the best target.

  “Defense, redirect all of our guns to the task of missile interception. On the double!”

  “Aye, aye!”

  “Helm, move us away from those missiles, as far and as fast as you can. Retreat back into the middle of the defensive formation,” said Ravinder. She would not allow the Hyperion to be lost.

  “Sir,” said her XO, “If we redirect all of the guns away from the drones, then the drones will destroy us.”

  Ravinder nodded. “Be that as it may, Commander, I promise you that missiles will destroy us much faster than these gnats that are eating away at our hull and armor.”

  “Understood, sir,” her XO replied.

  “Comms, contact any and all nearby ships, and request immediate support. Inform any nearby friendly ships or starfighters that we are in need of missile interception. Then repeat that. Make it clear that our request is urgent!”

  “Aye, aye, sir, hailing all nearby ships and starfighters,” said the Comms chief, and his staff immediately began to speak into their headsets.

  “The missiles are gaining on us,” said the Ops chief. “Half the distance is gone. We must move faster.”

  “We are moving as fast as I can make us go,” replied the helmsman, sounding either annoyed or terrified, perhaps both. “But there’s not a
ship in the fleet that can outrun a missile without jumping into alteredspace.”

  Alteredspace, thought Ravinder, what a great idea. “Helm, calculate a jump into alteredspace, it doesn’t matter where, and proceed to jump as fast as we possibly can.”

  “I cannot do it, sir,” replied the helmsman. “Our alteredspace drive has taken too much damage. It’s useless as scrap to us now.”

  “Not to mention we drained all power from that system long ago to help support the shields,” said the Ops chief, quickly adding, “The missiles are fast approaching. Time to interception…forty-five seconds.”

  “Defense, have you gotten the gun crews to switch tasks yet?” demanded Ravinder, feeling a rush of impatience as the Ops chief continued counting down.

  “We’re doing our best,” said the Defense chief. “The gun crews have their orders and they are trying to adjust the guns, some are nearly ready, with more still adjusting, while others have overheated and gone completely offline.”

  “Thirty-five seconds,” said the Ops chief.

  “How many guns will be ready by the time those missiles reach us?” asked Ravinder, her state of alarm rising to new levels she hadn’t thought possible.

  “I’m still figuring that out; I’ll get back to you,” said the Defense chief.

  “Comms, any response from any nearby allied starships?” asked Ravinder desperately. Surely there had to be someone who could help them.

  “Twenty-five seconds.”

  “Only one reply, sir,” said the Comms chief. “It’s from the ISS Argonaut, the nearest allied capital ship.”

  “And?” asked Ravinder, hoping for good news.

  “Nineteen seconds,” the Ops chief continued the count.

  “They are unable to assist,” said the Comms chief. “They’re dealing with a missile problem of their own.”

  “Thirteen seconds!”

  “We’ve got it!” announced the Defense chief loudly. “Thirty-six guns, primed and ready.”

  “Open fire!” commanded Ravinder, doing some math in her head. If every gun fired, and none missed their marks, thirty-six guns should be exactly enough to stop thirty-six missiles. And barely in time!

  “Firing!” said the Defense chief. Then his look of excitement abruptly shifted to horror.

  “What?” demanded Ravinder.

  “Five seconds.”

  “One of the guns—it’s overheated!”

  “How?” demanded Ravinder.

  “Two.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “One.”

  When the missile impacted with the Hyperion, everything happened instantaneously. Ravinder didn’t have time to comprehend what was happening until it had already happened.

  The hull protecting the bridge failed and was instantaneously reduced to a spray of debris; chunks of it were sent in all directions, a few struck some of the officers, decapitating one and killing another with blunt force trauma. As for Ravinder, she felt an exposure to forces that seemed to throw her leftward in her chair, violently. And crew who were not strapped in, which was most of the bridge staff, were blown out into open space, also instantaneously.

  After a second or two, Ravinder got her bearings, and could make some sense of where she was, and what had happened. Everything had become completely silent and all around her was blackness, interrupted only by strangely bright, artificial lights that seemed to be everywhere. She opened her mouth to breathe, but found no air to inhale. In fact, making the attempt immediately resulted in severe chest pains that she couldn’t quite understand. For that matter, making sense of anything quickly became progressively more difficult.

  She could make sense of the fact that she was still strapped into the command position’s chair, which remained bolted to the floor, but the bridge itself had been blasted entirely free from the rest of the Hyperion, and was now an exposed, free-floating object, spiraling in open space. As far as she could tell, only she remained. There were others who had been strapped in too, but, of the ones she saw, they looked dead or unconscious…some skewered by debris, others simply looked as though they were having a nap. As for the rest of the crew, those who had been blown out into open space the instant the breach occurred, none of them could be seen. At least not from her vantage point, as she, and the remains of the bridge, continued to spiral.

  Things felt a little heavier after a few more seconds. It was difficult to remain conscious, her chest burned with horrible pain, and she wanted more than anything to breathe, but there was nothing for her lungs to take in. Her cognitive functions began to decline and, as even more seconds ticked by, she managed to think of only two more things: Strange, I thought space would feel a lot colder, and, I feel swollen everywhere…

  The last thing she saw, as the remnants of the Hyperion’s bridge spiraled around, bringing the ship into view, was the rest of the Hyperion break apart, its hull suddenly and instantly giving way. Then there was nothing but darkness. In all, the entire experience lasted fifteen seconds.

  CHAPTER 13

  Calvin had hoped to avoid any more fighting as he and his team raced back toward the pods. He wanted nothing more than to get back on the Nighthawk, jump away from this system, and put the entire experience permanently behind him. For the most part, he kept his concentration well, and managed to think only of the mission, and, when they had come across enemies, it had been Calvin who had spotted them first.

  The fight had proven to be brief, although extremely gruesome. The enemy force outnumbered Calvin’s group by about fifty percent. However, they also seemed to be taken completely by surprise when Calvin and his team attacked them. For a few deadly minutes, Calvin was not sure that he and his forces would prevail, or that anyone would manage to get back to the pods and back to the Nighthawk. If that proved to be the case, he dearly hoped that Nimoux would eventually retreat the ship to safety after making the obvious assumption regarding Calvin and his team.

  But, as the fight intensified, Calvin’s Rosco-trained soldiers proved to be more effective than he had expected and, through superior marksmanship and a little cunning, his force managed to entirely eliminate the enemy soldier patrol, while only sustaining six casualties of their own. They were regrettable losses, all six of them. The lost included: one of the mercenaries that Raidan had sent Calvin what seemed like forever ago; also the specialist pilot—rendering one of the two pods completely un-flyable since only Calvin remained who knew how to operate the damned things; and finally four Rosco soldiers whose names, Calvin was ashamed to admit, he had never bothered to learn.

  During the chaos, their captive slipped free of the soldiers restraining him—mostly because those men had to draw their weapons and return fire on the enemy to save their lives. The escape attempt was noticed immediately, and the captive never managed to get far, nor could he wriggle out of the restraints that kept his arms behind his back, but his effort still contributed to the chaos. Ultimately, Nikolai had been the one to overtake the fleeing captive, the Dark Prelain, and aggressively tackle him to the ground. When Nikolai returned to the group, he had the captive slung over his shoulder as if the Dark One were a bundle of potatoes, yet, considering the ease with which Nikolai held him, it was as though he was as light as a feather. Fortunately, by the time Nikolai returned, the fight was over. So he had set the captive down and turned him back over to the two soldiers charged with watching him.

  “Don’t let him get away again,” Nikolai had warned them, “Or else I’ll do to you what I did to him.”

  The guards seemed to understand; although the exact threat hadn’t been clear to Calvin, the message had essentially been not to allow the captive any opportunity to slip away, even if their group found itself embattled once more. Calvin hoped these soldiers they had slaughtered would prove to be the only ones between them and the clearing where they had left the pods but, of course, it was impossible for him to know for sure.

  They had no time to mourn their dead, nor the means to retrieve their bod
ies—it would slow them down too much and make them too vulnerable, so as much as Calvin hated it, especially because it meant he could not retrieve Miles’s body either, they left the corpses where they lay and continued, moving at a near full sprint.

  The only truly difficult moment for Calvin, one that proved almost to break him, had been the moment they passed the spot where Miles had been slain. His body was still there, just as it had been, not even showing the first signs of rigor mortis—so recently had he died.

  Calvin felt a surge of rage, combined with tremendous regret, and he stopped dead in his tracks…wanting nothing more than to reverse the clock, just enough to prevent this senseless loss.

  His men did not agree with his decision to pause and stare down at the body. And, within two seconds, they were tugging and pulling at him, practically forcing him to continue onward, away from Miles’s corpse and toward the pods.

  It was several paces before Calvin could rip his eyes away from the sight of his departed friend. All the while thinking, in disbelief, how he would never hear that boisterous laugh again, nor feel the pat on his back that was always just a bit too hard. He felt a burning sensation in his eyes, the slightest hint of tears, the more he thought about it.

  God damn you, Miles, for leaving us so soon, he thought, successfully fighting back the outpouring of tears that threatened to overwhelm him. And God damn me for bringing you with us.

  Whatever else Miles had been, one thing that could always be said for him, was that if Calvin ever needed him, he had always been there for Calvin. And it didn’t matter what the circumstances were, or the details, or who was right or who was wrong; in any situation, no matter what, Miles always had Calvin’s back. That had proven true more times than Calvin could count. It was something he had loved, something he had relied on, and even something he had taken for granted. If there existed a person in the galaxy who was more loyal than Miles had been, Calvin had never met them. And in that moment, as he and his team continued racing to the pods, Calvin realized that that had been what he always admired most about Miles. His pure, unbendable loyalty. The galaxy sure could use a few more people like Miles, Calvin thought. Then it would certainly be a better place.