The Raygin War

  Some volunteers started to panic. They began to fan out.

  Mac lifted his visor and yelled at them. “Stay together! Stay together! You have to run at the split tree, or we all die!”

  They were scared, but they lined up again. In a few heartbeats, the fighters were in position behind them.

  “Uncloak and fire.”

  The troopers appeared as if from nowhere and began to shoot at the two fighters. It went down the way Mac thought it would. Since the pilots weren’t sure what weapons were being used against them, they broke off their approach and implemented evasive maneuvers. After they realized it was only low energy weapons, they would be back.

  “Any luck, Tinker?” asked Mac.

  “I got the laser rifle batteries hooked up. The canon is making noises, but the projectile ready light isn’t on. Keep coming at me. I’ll keep working on it.”

  The fighters swung around for another low-level run. The humans were three-fourths the way across the open field. One fighter took the lead and the second followed offset to the left. The humans presented themselves as a dream target. Everyone lined up in a nice tight row.

  “Fire Tinker, fire now!”

  “Still no light. Here goes.”

  The lead Raygin fired a powerful laser canon. The ground in front of Mac vaporized, sending rock flying like shrapnel. Two humans exploded into pieces from the flying debris. Mac aimed his little laser rifle at the approaching fighter. When Tinker hit the fire button, no one heard a sound. Unseen by the human eye a prolate spheroid shaped anti-particle round rocketed from the gun.

  Mac zeroed in on his target, ignoring all the pandemonium going on around him. His finger rested against the trigger. He began to squeeze. His gun hadn’t fired when a hole larger than his old math teacher’s ass appeared in the fighter. In a split second, he saw all the way through the Raygin war bird. It seemed like the lead plane hit its brakes. It passed overhead and veered left. The second fighter didn’t understand what happened. It couldn’t avoid a collision. They both hit the ground in a giant fireball.

  The volunteers cheered.

  Still trying to catch his breath, Smitty walked up to Mac. “What the hell just happened?”

  “It was our anti-particle canon,” said Mac.

  “Anti-particle canon?” Smitty blew out his nose, turned around, flailed his arms as he muttered something about spec ops and a lying bastard.

  With all the hooting and hollering going on, Mac couldn’t hear anything Smitty was grumbling about, but he got the gist of it. He smiled. The survivors made their way into camp. Mac let the group take a minute or two to celebrate before he gave them the bad news. He started walking toward Tinker.

  A perimeter guard yelled, “Halt! Identify yourself.”

  The cheering stopped. Everyone focused on a rather large person walking into the clearing. Mac turned, and started moving towards the intruder. Something was up. He was not coming from the crash site. It seems Rayne was full of surprises.

  Mac moved, placing himself between the intruder and a spot in the woods. His sniper honed skills picked up motion in the background. Sure enough, someone had repositioned to regain a tactical advantage. All was not as it seemed. Mac gave battle signals to Dwain, who in response moved unnoticed into the woods. Tinker and Dreng, now alerted, stood at the ready.

  Holding out his arms with his palms facing downward, the intruder moved toward Mac. He yelled, “I am Mahpee, Chief of the People’s Nation. My ship, the Wasp, received damage in a firefight with the Raygin. We were assisting a UFC convoy.”

  Dreng lifted her visor in disbelief. “Father?”

  “Ayashe?”

  Ayashe? Mac’s legs felt weak. He could see the confusion on the chief’s face too. Mac called to the guard, “It’s okay. Let him enter.” But it wasn’t okay. A thousand scenarios flashed through his mind. None were good, and what about the sniper in the woods?

  The chief started to move toward his daughter. “What are you doing here? We have trackers searching everywhere for you. These are dangerous times.” Mahpee turned toward the woods. “Nidawi, come, we are among family and friends.”

  Dreng moved toward Mahpee. Mac could see she was unsure of herself. Mahpee ran to his daughter scooping her up in his arms. There was no doubt in his intentions. Mac saw tears of joy in his eyes.

  Behind Mahpee and Dreng, Mac observed a lone figure walking out from the shadows. It was the hidden sniper. Near where Nidawi revealed herself, Dwain appeared, and began walking toward her.

  “Ayashe, forgive me. I was a fool. I should have told you how I felt, but it still hurts whenever I talk of your mother. I feared the old legends. I wanted to protect you, so I forbid you to enter the military. Come home with me, and I will support anything you want to do.”

  Now, it was Dreng’s turn to cry. “Father, I was wrong too, but in a way, I did what you begged me to do.”

  Mac knew weasel words when he heard them. What in the world was Dreng up to?

  “I have joined with a Person of the Stars.”

  Mahpee’s arms dropped as he stood with a blank stare of his face.

  Mac walked up to the father and daughter.

  Dreng said, “This is Mac, Father. We are one.”

  I can’t believe she’s telling her father we made love! This is a little too open for me. Wait. What did she say? We are in love? No, no. It was we are one. What the hell does that mean?

  Mac could see Mahpee’s shoulders droop even further. In the background he also saw Dwain put his hand on Nidawi’s back. She spun inside, grabbing his shoulder, moved her leg behind him, and pushed. Before Dwain hit the ground, Nidawi was holding a knife to his neck. Her brown eyes stared into Dwain’s.

  Dwain smiled through his open visor. “Are you a robot too? You’re beautiful.”

  The slightest upturn appeared on Nidawi’s lips. She rolled off Dwain, sheathed her knife, and held out her hand. “I am sorry. Instincts. No one lays a hand on me.” She smiled and said, “Unless I want them to.”

  Dwain smiled like a playful puppy as he took her hand.

  She pulled him up with ease. “No, I am not a robot.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you were.” He smiled and said, “I’m Dwain.”

  The body language of Nidawi indicated she was receptive to Dwain’s unusual overtures. With at least some introductions completed, attention focused once again on Dreng and her father.

  Looking at Mac with a new focus, Mahpee said, “I am sorry, Mac. You must realize your joining is hard for me to digest.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mac. He was having a hard time making sense of all this sexual openness.

  Now, Mahpee looked at his daughter. “I fear you have made a bad choice in a man my daughter. You have joined with an idiot.”

  “Mac, this is what I wanted to tell you.”

  “What? About sex?” asked Mac.

  Mahpee’s face turned red. He glared at Mac. “What is going on here? Did you or did you not have a ceremonial joining?”

  Stepping in front of her father, Dreng prepared to answer the question. Mahpee put his hand up to silence his daughter.

  “I am talking to you, Mac.”

  This was not the way Mac planned on meeting Dreng’s father. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I can tell you I have fallen in love with your daughter.”

  “Great Spirit, help me. I’ll ask you again. This time I will help you by speaking slower, so you can understand. Did you, or did you not have a ceremonial joining?”

  “I can say, your daughter told me we had a joining.”

  Frustration appeared on the chief’s face. “What? Are you telling me you don’t know? Weren’t you there with her? How could you not know? Were there two pine-scented candles? Did my daughter offer a blessing prayer? Did she not wear a pure white silk made from the Crepe spiders? When you were intimate with my daughter for the first time, were you not covered in a blue blanket?”

  This was not going well. The saliva
built up so thick in Mac’s throat he didn’t think he could answer. Thankfully, Dreng spoke up.

  “Stop this inquisition, Father. It’s my fault. I haven’t had the chance to tell him the significance of a joining.”

  It hit Mac like a ton of space debris. A joining was a ceremony, not the act of making love. YES, screamed in his mind. He couldn’t contain his joy. Now, I don’t have to figure out a way to ask her the big question. We are already married. The little minx he thought. That’s what she wanted to talk to me about.

  “Mr. Mahpee, I don’t pretend to understand everything that has happened between your daughter and me. I don’t understand your customs. You should know I was trying to figure out how I could ask her to marry me according to my customs.”

  “You were?” interrupted Dreng.

  Mac smiled at her. “I was, but if I understand what is being said, I don’t have to because we are already, um, joined.”

  Mahpee began to understand it was his daughter who had been deceitful. He allowed her spouse to see a half-smile. He looked at Mac. “Call me Mahpee. My people do not have surnames.”

  With his left eyebrow arched, Mac looked at Dreng.

  “I am sorry for deceiving you my love. I created a temporary name from two different advertisement displays in Finder’s Station. I generated a false identity using the name Dreng Matilda. My true name is Ayashe, it means – little one.”

  With the truth out, most tension in Ayashe’s body dissolved. But, her eyes said she still felt a great deal of apprehension. Mac reassured her with a big hug. She embraced him back with such force he thought he felt his ribs beginning to crack.

  A floating head appeared next to Mahpee. Third platoon wasted no time in aiming their weapons at the new threat. It stared at Mac and Ayashe as if evaluating them.

  Ayashe recognized the face. “Great-grandfather Uzumati. Is that you?” she asked.

  Uzumati’s head smiled at Ayashe and turned towards Mahpee and frowned. “We have a big problem.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE: The Secret

  Dagger and Warhammer escorted the Argosy to safety. They sent battle videos via com probe to United Fleet Command. The captains did what Mac thought they would. They both headed back to the Rayne solar system to assist in the battle. Upon their return, they saw the bad news. The UFC convoy was down to a Battleship and a single cruiser. Both ships had minor damage.

  The Raygin designed computers were faster. The quick-thinking alien technology meant they could initiate the next firing sequence first, forcing the humans to be on the defensive. The UFC ships got a few lucky hits through the Raygin shields as they fired their weapons, but the big bug ship didn’t sustain much damage.

  The Dagger’s captain, Tal Fetter, had been involved in several space battles during her career. It was obvious the humans were going to lose this fight unless something changed. She reasoned if the Raygin computers were faster than the human war computer, a UFC ship should disengage from the computer and create an unknown variable. She volunteered the Dagger.

  After notifying the Admiral of their arrival and their plan, both ships entered the fight. The Dagger had immediate success with the first weapon volley it fired. The Raygin ship lost maneuvering thrusters on the port side. After the initial success the bug computer learned how to adjust to what, at times, must have seemed like illogical decisions.

  The battle had turned into a stalemate because the Raygin ship always played it safe. When Mac’s call came in about the bugs ships having two ion drives, Tal’s creativity kicked in. She had a plan. She relayed her requirements to the remaining ships. Tal maneuvered the Dagger near the bug ship’s port side and fired several times at the rear thrusters. The Raygin returned fire, sending the Dagger limping off behind the nearest planet.

  The three remaining UFC ships kept firing at the Raygin ship for hours, hoping to score a hit during the same fraction of a second the bug shields had to come down to fire fire their weapons. The Raygin ship only maneuvered and fired on the humans when there was no risk to the alien ship.

  Tal was finally ready. “Implement takedown,” she broadcast to the remaining human ships.

  The three Federation ships began to maneuver to the Raygin ship’s aft and starboard side. Tal accelerated the Dagger using its ion drive. By the time the Raygin realized the Dagger was pushing a damaged cruiser straight into its port side, it was too late to move using only the slower thrusters. It was forced to use its ion drive to make a quick getaway move.

  As soon as the Raygin ship began to engage their ion drive to avoid the impending collision, the UFC ships opened fire. The humans even used the damaged cruiser’s weapon systems to take a few shots at the enemy ship. It looked like a huge Tesla coil in space. The Raygin shields with their reduced power could not withstand the attack of a battleship and four cruisers. The bug ship blew apart in three large chunks of black metal, which floated off into space.

  The Raygin ship’s destruction came at a price. The Dagger was the lone UFC ship undamaged. Several fighters were now stuck in the launch tubes on the human battleship. Repairs were underway. The battle had cost both sides tens of thousands of lives.

  “Well done,” said the admiral. “I’m not complaining, but where the hell did both of you come from?”

  “Admiral, this is Captain Tal Fretter, on the Dagger. We are on assignment with Commodore McCormack and under his direct orders.”

  “Commodore? I heard rumors they resurrected that old rank for some high-flying official. The UFC kept it a secret. Do you know why?”

  “Yes sir, he’s the single commodore in the entire fleet. If everyone knew his rank, he couldn’t move without lots of formality.”

  “Is he there? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “He’s not here, sir. He’s on Rayne with three platoons of… spec ops. He had a feeling the bugs were using Rayne as a forward staging area. He saved our two ships and the Argosy too. He had us deploy a couple vid/com mini satellites near Rayne, put him on the ground, and hide on the nearest planet’s far side. If the bugs showed up, our orders were to get the Argosy away from harm.

  We were afraid of detection after the three Raygin ships arrived. We laid low until you arrived and began firing at them. It was the distraction we needed to get the Argosy to safety. We got her on her way home and came back as soon as possible to help.”

  “If the commodore is right,” said the admiral, “and this is a forward staging area, we had better get out of here. Tal, can you or the Warhammer send a team into these floating hunks of enemy ship? We need to look for some of their technology. It might prove useful. Also if you could take some interior ship vids and grab a few bodies it would help. While you explore the remnants of the enemy ship, we will try to repair ours enough so we can get back home.”

  “No problem admiral. I’ll dispatch a team now.”

  Within minutes Dagger began to move abeam the Raygin ship. Tal deployed a shuttle. It contained a team made up of weapons experts, engineers, and medical personnel. She didn’t realize how big the Raygin ship was until they were next to the floating remnants. She was sure it was at least twice the size of their battleship.

  Another intact UFC cruiser was drifting in space. It had no drive capability and was on battery powered life support. Upon evaluation the engineers reported they were too damaged to repair. Since the Warhammer didn’t receive much damage it picked up the crew of the broken cruiser. The Raygin had destroyed the rest of the UFC ships.

  Tal dialed in Mac’s frequency to give him an update. The war had started. Why? She had no idea. The humans would soon be in the fight of their lives. Mac had become the most important man in the universe. He now held rank over all military personnel, and for that matter the civilians too. She hoped every rumor she heard about him was true.

  The radio beeped that a link was established. “Mac, Tal here.” She waited for a response.

  “This is Mac, go ahead Tal.”

  “Argosy is on her way to Finder’s Station
. The battle is over. We destroyed all three Raygin ships. We are making required repairs, picking up survivors, and boarding what’s left of the Raygin ship. We are looking for technology and any beneficial information. UFC survivors include the Battleship, one cruiser, plus Dagger and Warhammer. Do you need assistance?”

  “Not right now. We have over a hundred human survivors from the crashed Raygin ship on Rayne. Tell the admiral Mahpee says he and his crew are well. Hundreds of hostiles survived the crash too. We will need to run a couple shuttles to get the human survivors off planet. I’ll call when we are ready. We need to get out of here real fast.”

  “Aye sir, I’m on board with that.”

  He’s one of those people always at the center of the action. His legend will grow even more after this battle. Tal refocused her attention on the view screen as she watched the crew vid cameras. The boarding party began their entry procedure. The Raygin ship broke into three large sections. It was a shadow of its once great glory.

  She moved to the biggest hunk of metal. Boarding another ship was always a dangerous undertaking. Even though there were holes everywhere, they could still run into pockets of survivors. The crew went in well-armed, and wearing oxygen supplied mobility suits with grav shoes. The military called them Oxies.

  Once inside the ship, the team entered a large dark passageway. As they moved deeper inside, the engineers placed signal boosters for both audio and vid displays. The crew on the Dagger’s bridge watched as pieces of bug bodies and strange looking equipment floated by. Tal guessed the ship could hold at least twenty thousand or so bugs.

  The team came upon a sealed hatch. Evolutions like this put the boarding party at great risk. “Commander Coleman, I don’t need to tell you to be careful, so I won’t.”

  “Thanks for your trust in me captain, I appreciate it.”

  She could see him smile as a crewmate looked at his face. The team set up a temporary barrier and depressurized the area behind the hatch for entry. Tal stared at the view screen as the team opened the sealed door. Caught by surprise, a large group of bugs started to scramble. They were coming after the human threat.