Ural shrugged. Maddox could deal with Diem. It was possible the captain had already slain the renegade Spacer.
Switching mental gears, Ural wondered if Star Watch would gain too much data from Drakos.
Ural shrugged once again. Star Watch Intelligence had captured superiors before. The Throne World was still intact and unsullied, never having suffered the presence of a subman fleet.
A red light flashed on his desk. Ural tapped a switch.
“Sir,” the bridge officer said on a tiny desk screen. “There’s a new development on the gas giant.”
“Oh?”
“I recommend that you come to the bridge at once, sir.”
“I’m on my way,” Ural said.
***
The development turned out to be the arrival of three Juggernauts. The huge, twenty-kilometer-diameter ex-Rull vessels left the gas giant’s upper atmosphere and headed for its Earth-sized moon.
At the same time, attack saucers rose up from the moon’s thick atmosphere, nine of them, a few more than anticipated.
“Interesting,” Ural said quietly.
“This is a greater force than we imagined they’d have,” the bridge officer said.
Ural nodded. “If the bugs had brought three more Juggernauts along…the Battle of the Gomez System might have gone differently.”
“Commander Thrax was too defensive-minded,” the bridge officer said.
“Not necessarily,” Ural said. “What if we were a raid force and only had nine star cruisers instead of our twenty? The Juggernauts would have proven sufficient to defend the hive. What use to win a war and find your home burned down and everyone slain?”
“Thrax guessed wrong then.”
“Yes,” Ural said. “He most certainly did.” Ural studied the bug fleet for some time, and he wondered if there were hidden surface defensive systems on the moon. This might not be a cakewalk after all. Should he call the Emperor and request more star cruisers? If he did, and waited, would the remaining Swarm bugs flee elsewhere?
Ural drummed his fingers on the arm of his command chair. He was here. He had a strong flotilla. It was time to annihilate the last Swarm invaders and conclude the Imperial Swarm invasions for good.
***
The Juggernauts and attack saucers remained in the moon’s orbit, holding a stationary position over the planetary body.
“We go in,” Ural told his captains. “If we have to dig them out, we dig them out.”
There were disagreements, but Ural enforced his will over the others.
In time, the twenty star cruisers assumed the cone of battle. As the cone approached the Earth-sized moon, missiles roared from a nearby moon. More missiles roared up from the surface of the Earth-sized moon. The combined missiles accelerated at the cone.
Joining the heavy Swarm missiles came the Juggernauts, and behind them, the last attack saucers.
The Juggernauts opened up with heavy laser fire. The beams washed overlapping star cruiser shields, turning them red…brown—
Disruptor beams flashed the distance, concentrating on a single Juggernaut.
It was head-to-head, if at a distance.
A star cruiser’s shield buckled as it went black. That vessel slid away to the rear of the cone of battle, escaping the laser beams that attempted to follow it.
A new star cruiser took that one’s place at the front of the cone. The majority of the disruptor beams continued to drill at the targeted Juggernaut.
Another star cruiser had to retreat to the back of the cone, there to bleed off the terrible energies that had overloaded its shield generators.
That’s when the Juggernaut’s shield buckled. The terrible disrupter beams crashed against the hull armor. They poured it on, and a hull breach occurred.
The Juggernaut trembled, and then it spewed debris and radiation from the breach. Seconds later, the entire giant spaceship exploded. The expanding energy and matter struck a second Juggernaut. In the other direction, the expanding energy and matter destroyed one tenth of the bug missile fleet.
The battle continued, and now the distances were closing rapidly. That increased the intensity of the beams, particularly the laser beams.
This was going to be a hotly fought contest.
***
In the end, Ural lost three star cruisers to Juggernaut laser beams. Those three ships simply could not get to the back of the cone quickly enough.
The kills cost the bugs the last two ex-Rull monsters. It also cost them half the missile fleet.
From that point, though, the contest was over. Now, it was a matter of slaughter.
The cone dispersed as disrupter beams destroyed the many heavy missiles.
The attack saucers might have used that time to run with star-drive jumps. They did not. They kept boring in, bugs defending their hive.
Each saucer exploded in time, annihilated by the superior and more numerous star cruisers.
The victory cost three star cruisers. Ural could hardly believe that. He’d thought this would be a cakewalk.
The tallest of the superiors sighed. Now, it was time to finish this for good.
-6-
The seventeen star cruisers scoured the Earth-sized moon with sensors and then with disrupter beams. They destroyed every missile launched at them. They exploded every surface laser battery.
Afterward, at Ural’s orders, the hellburners dropped. The bombs struck the domes and burned. Later, the drill mines went down and exploded deep underground. Those bombs also burned.
Bugs died and died, and the hive ceased to exist. More hellburners fell just to make sure.
Finally, it was over. Thrax’s new colony world was gone. What the Builder at the Dyson Sphere had begun long ago—an experiment—had ultimately ended as a failure.
Ural was glad to give the newest order. The seventeen star cruisers headed for home, one more enemy of the Throne World annihilated. Finally, he could get back to his chart and continue to hunt for his brother’s murderers.
-7-
A little over three hundred light-years away on Earth, Maddox and Meta ate a wonderful dinner with Grandmother O’Hara. Mary had permission to go with the captain to the restaurant of her choice. They ate in Paris at her favorite place.
Before the appetizer came, the captain reached across the table and held Mary’s hands.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for everything. You have no idea how much you mean to me. I love you, Grandma. I’m so happy to have another addition to my family.”
There were tears in Mary’s eyes, and she was smiling so wide her face hurt. “Let me tell you about your mother,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance until now.”
Meta dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. She was so happy for both of them.
“Yes,” Maddox said. “I would like that a lot. Tell me about my mother.”
Mary did. It was the greatest evening of her life since her dear Sandra had died.
Mary stared into Maddox’s eyes, finally telling him all the things she had longed to tell him for years now. Look at him, so strong and handsome, such a good grandson.
Even though Mary no longer ran Intelligence, and it looked like she never would, she was happy, very happy indeed. This was the greatest moment in a long, long time, and she hoped the evening would last forever.
THE END
To the Reader: Thanks! I hope you’ve enjoyed The Lost Swarm. If you liked the book and would like to see the series continue, please put up some stars and a review. Let new readers know what’s in store for them.
-- Vaughn Heppner
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