Superdreadnought- The Complete Series

by C H Gideon

  An older soldier appeared on the screen. His hair was trimmed perfectly, and the slim mustache on his upper lip was manicured into what was almost a perfectly straight line.

  Reynolds noted the shine of his regalia and the crispness of his uniform as he appraised the soldier, but his face didn’t match the spotless image he portrayed.

  He looked tired and worn, and it wasn’t until he spoke that Reynolds realized the captain really wasn’t all that old. He was simply beaten down and exhausted.

  “I am Captain Frair Rom of the Stark,” he said. His voice was neutral, but there was no vigor to it. “You have intruded upon his Eternal Majesty Phraim-’Eh’s territory. You are advised to turn about immediately, or we will be forced to destroy you.”

  “How’d that work out for the fourth member of your fleet?” Reynolds fired back, meeting the captain’s gaze and holding it. “We can send you to join him if you like.”

  The captain swallowed visibly and ran a nervous hand across his clean-shaved chin. “You cannot frighten us, Captain Reynolds,” Rom assured the AI, but Reynolds didn’t believe a fucking word the guy said.

  “If that’s the case, why haven’t you and your ships come at us again?” he challenged. “You clearly know who we are, since I didn’t introduce myself but you said my name. That being the case, you know damn well your master wants us dead, so why are you offering us an out?”

  “Phraim-’Eh’s fleet is still parked above Hajh,” Tactical reported in his ear. “If this guy is hoping for the cavalry to swoop in and rescue him, he’s shit outta luck.”

  Reynolds acknowledged Tactical with the barest of nods.

  “This is your last opportunity,” Rom warned, straightening and doing his best to glare menacingly into the camera.

  “How about I counter your generous offer with one of my own?” the AI asked. “We both know damn well your master is camped out at Hajh, and he’s not coming to save your asses. By the time he gets here, there will be nothing left of you or your outpost except crispy bits and ashes.”

  Reynolds let the threat sink in for a moment before continuing.

  “Or…you can surrender and live,” Reynolds finished, the offer simple and to the point.

  The captain continued to stare at Reynolds as if incapable of speaking.

  “Guess we’re doing this the hard way, then.”

  Reynolds motioned to Ria. “Ensign Alcott, bring us about so we can blow these fools away up close and personal.”

  “Yes, sir!” Ria cried.

  Jiya stifled a grin at the young ensign’s excitement. A message scrolled across her station, advising her to ignore the order but to act as if she were complying.

  “Targeting the lead ship,” Tactical announced, doing exactly that, knowing the captain would know otherwise.

  There was little more than a heartbeat of silence before the Stark’s captain broke it.

  “Forgive me, Lord,” he whispered barely loud enough for anyone to hear, eyes downcast. Then he braved a look up and met Reynolds’ gaze again. “I surrender,” he said. “We surrender,” he corrected.

  The captain turned to an officer Reynolds couldn’t see offscreen.

  “Advise the fleet to stand down,” Captain Rom said before turning back to Reynolds.

  Fleet?

  The AI wiped away his grin before the captain saw it.

  I’d hardly call three ships a fleet, but I’ll let the guy have his moment of vanity. What can it hurt?

  “Weapons are going offline,” Asya reported. “As are their shields.”

  “This feel a little too easy to anyone else?” Tactical asked, muting the channel so Captain Rom couldn’t hear him.

  “It does seem a little abrupt,” XO admitted.

  “Then again,” Jiya added, “we have been leaving all sorts of cultists’ bodies in our wake.”

  Reynolds unmuted the channel and stared at the captain. “If you’re serious about surrendering, here are our terms.”

  The AI gave the captain a moment to balk, but instead, he only nodded.

  “You will abandon your ships and return to the planet, leaving them behind to be destroyed.”

  Reynolds paused again, and although the captain was visibly shaken by what he’d been told, he didn’t contest it.

  “You will then denounce your god and abandon his faith, vowing to never again take up arms for him.”

  One last hesitation told Reynolds the captain was serious when all he got was a quiet, almost whimpering cough as the terms were laid out.

  “Abide by those terms, and you will live out your life in peace from here on out,” Reynolds closed. “Since we intend to kill Phraim-’Eh and anyone who maintains their allegiance to him, your choice is clear. Step away or die.”

  It wasn’t much of a choice, but the captain made the right one.

  “We will abide by your terms, Captain Reynolds,” Rom told him, his chin angling toward his chest in shame.

  The channel went black, and Reynolds turned to face the crew, an eyebrow raised.

  “Maybe I’m just a pessimist, but that was definitely too damn easy, just like Tactical and XO said,” Maddox stated. “He gave in without any kind of fight at all.”

  “Maybe they’re tired of fighting?” Jiya suggested.

  “I’m with Maddox on this one,” Asya countered.

  “You think he really means it?” Ria asked Reynolds.

  The AI shrugged. “Honestly? It doesn’t really matter,” he replied as the first of the shuttles emerged from the enemy destroyers, angling toward the planet. “Either we take out Phraim-’Eh and these cultists have no one to follow anymore, or Phraim-’Eh stops by and murders them all for being cowardly betrayers. Either suits our purpose.”

  More and more shuttles emerged from the destroyers, and Reynolds watched the reports as Jiya scanned the ships for lifeforms. With the shields down, it was a simple task.

  “Any signs of self-destructs being triggered or people trying to stay aboard?” Reynolds asked.

  “Negative,” Jiya responded. “It appears they are doing exactly what they agreed to. Well, the first part, at least. No real way to know about the second.”

  Reynolds nodded, also surprised at how easy it had been to take the planet without having to fire more than enough shots to destroy a single ship.

  “Scrape the command ship’s databases, but be sure to scan the uploads to make sure there’s nothing harmful in the coding,” Reynolds told Geroux. “My inner paranoid is telling me to be careful, while my inner optimist doesn’t give a fuck as long as shit works out in our favor.”

  “That could be what they want us to do,” Asya suggested. “I mean, they had to know we’d plunder their systems before we destroyed the ships. That’s just standard practice, right?”

  “Well, we already know enough about their coding to recognize and defend against it, so it’s not like uploading a virus is much of a game-changer,” Reynolds replied with a shrug. “Besides, if that’s their big, nefarious scheme, we’re seriously overestimating Phraim-’Eh.”

  “Databases copied and decrypted,” Geroux reported. “I’m parsing the information now.”

  “Blow those ships away, Tactical,” Reynolds ordered. “No point letting them sit there while we pick our asses.”

  Tactical complied and fired on each ship in turn. With no shields up, they were sitting ducks.

  It took a moment for him to batter past the armor, but it wasn’t long before all three ships were rattling hunks of junk, tumbling toward a fiery death in the atmosphere of Suri.

  “That was fun.” Tactical chuckled.

  “I think I’ve got something, Captain,” Geroux said.

  She brought it up on the screen.

  “A location in the Stark’s data coincides with one of the smaller cult installation’s coordinates we scraped from Jora’nal’s computer.”

  “What are we looking at?” the AI asked.

  “It’s some tiny, out-of-the-way planet that’s barel
y a blip on the star charts,” Geroux explained. “A planet that doesn’t even register as having a real name, only a designation. QI482, but the corresponding logs reference it as ‘Quil.’”

  Reynolds looked it up.

  “An agricultural planet?” he asked, reading the information scrolling across the screen. “No exports, nothing of note has ever been recorded regarding it, and it’s way outside the space lanes. There is literally nothing there.”

  “Sounds like a perfect home base for a cult, if you ask me,” Asya said.

  “It’s a trap!” Tactical shouted.

  “It’s no fun when they don’t get the reference, Tactical.”

  “Not my fault they were born in the wrong galaxy…far, far away.”

  Reynolds groaned. “Just stop, please.”

  “We could always go and check it out,” Jiya suggested. “We’ve still got the trackers on Phraim-’Eh, and we’ll know if he responds to our invading his space. If he doesn’t, then we blow up the outpost there, and we’re another batch of dead cultists ahead with no loss to us.”

  Reynolds stiffened, suddenly grinning. “That gives me an idea.”

  “That’s never good,” Tactical muttered.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Phraim-’Eh sat in his quarters aboard the Godhand.

  Still stationed over Hajh, he had his disciples scouring through the wreckage Reynolds and his people had made of the outpost below. And though there was little left to parse through, Phraim-’Eh had to be absolutely certain that the Federation scum received no additional intelligence from the out-of-the-way station.

  He’d once believed his whereabouts to be sacrosanct to his top disciples, that they would never betray him to the Federation or his other enemies, but that illusion had been shattered by Jora’nal.

  It had been further stomped upon by the revelation that Jora’nal still lived and was in the AI’s custody.

  He wanted to think the Federation pawn had lied to him, that he’d only been baiting him when he said that, but evidence from the site of Jora’nal’s failure spoke of Reynolds’ escape from the planet right before the explosion that wiped out the headquarters there.

  That meant that, if Reynolds could have slipped free, then so could Jora’nal, especially if the AI took the disciple with him.

  He wondered if the fool was working for Reynolds, being fed promises and lies to cooperate, or if the foul creature had suffered and broken under torture.

  Does it matter? he asked himself.

  That Jora’nal would betray him in either event was sufficient to consider him lost.

  And if he were still alive when Phraim-’Eh was finished dealing with Reynolds and his crew, Phraim-’Eh would see to it that Jora’nal met a fate fit for scum like him.

  A smile crept to Phraim-’Eh’s lips as he imagined what he might do to Jora’nal, but a quiet knock at the door tore him from his pleasant reverie.

  “Come!” he shouted.

  A servant eased the door open just wide enough to peek inside.

  “The Voice wishes to speak with you,” the male said.

  “Patch him through,” Phraim-’Eh replied, waving the servant away. He was all too glad to comply.

  Phraim-’Eh opened the channel without waiting for the servant. Quiet static became an even quieter voice after a moment.

  “Speak, Voice,” Phraim-’Eh commanded, too sick with disappointment to be bothered to threaten him.

  It clearly did no good, and the Voice would feel Phraim-’Eh’s wrath soon enough. Until then, he served a purpose.

  “Reynolds has been to Suri,” the Voice reported.

  “And?” Phraim-’Eh nudged when the Voice paused to catch his breath.

  “The ships there have been destroyed, and he coerced the captain and his crews to stand down and turn their back on you, Lord.”

  A growl welled up from deep in Phraim-’Eh’s throat. “He did what?”

  “Captain Rom has turned against you, if only in a promise to Reynolds,” the Voice went on.

  “Then he has turned against me indeed,” Phraim-’Eh swore. “I will see the captain and all his people dead! Prepare to meet me, for I am coming to Suri now!”

  “If I might…” the Voice pleaded.

  “You dare?”

  “Only so that you might not be blinded by your rage before you know everything I have learned, Master,” the Voice told him.

  Phraim-’Eh nearly choked on his fury, but he reined it in enough to allow his disciple to speak and explain himself.

  “Tell me!”

  “Reynolds has learned of Quil, Master,” his disciple told him. “Captain Rom overheard him saying as they banished him to Suri that their next target would be Quil. The captain prays to beg your forgiveness for providing this information.”

  A cold chill froze the blood in Phraim-’Eh’s veins. “How…could…” He left his question hanging, all thoughts of the captain’s betrayal vanquished from his mind.

  His stomach churned as he imagined Reynolds defiling his home planet, ruining the system as the android’s masters had ruined countless others by bringing their warped sense of justice to them.

  “This cannot be allowed,” Phraim-’Eh said, more to himself than the Voice. He barely remembered the disciple was on the line. “He cannot be allowed to defile the home of my forefathers. They struggled long and hard to find a world where they could hide from the clawing fingers of the Federation, where they could feel safe at long last. I will not let them soil Quil! I will not!”

  Phraim-’Eh leapt to his feet, his power barely restrained. He paced back and forth, every step pounding across the deck and reverberating through the steel.

  “Summon every disciple to me,” Phraim-’Eh ordered, “and call them to war. This creature shall not set his blasphemous foot upon my homeworld. I will see him burned to ashes before I let him take my world from me.”

  “As you wish, Master,” the Voice replied, and was forgotten.

  Phraim-’Eh screamed for his servant. He would journey to Quil and set an armada about the planet, ensuring Reynolds could never come near.

  And for daring to threaten his home, Phraim-’Eh would see the AI burn.

  Then he’d turn his fury on the Earth!

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What do you know?” Reynolds said, pulling a face. “This place really is the pathetic god’s base of operations.”

  He tapped the screen that was monitoring Phraim-’Eh’s fleet, calling it to the attention of the crew.

  “He’s pulling up stakes and headed this way like a bat outta Hell,” the AI went on. “He didn’t even bother to collect the people he’d dropped off on the planet before he took off. Poor bastards.”

  Ka’nak shrugged. “That’s a few less cultists we have to worry about killing, but I’m torn as to whether that’s good or bad.”

  “The trackers show that he is on his way here with all haste,” Takal warned.

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing we showed up before we convinced Captain Rom to send that message, huh?” Reynolds laughed.

  The SD Reynolds had Gated in earlier in the day and laid traps for Phraim-’Eh’s fleet. They’d seeded the space around the planet with cloaked mines in the hundreds, and they’d arranged a few other surprises for the would-be god once he arrived.

  Phraim-’Eh’s panicked reaction to Quil being threatened made it clear that Reynolds had made the right decision.

  Since the start of the mission, the cultists and their leader had been the ones to choose the times and places of the engagements between them, and Reynolds and his people had suffered for it.

  Good people had died or been injured because Phraim-’Eh had held all the cards, sneaking around the shadows and bleeding his misery into their lives.

  Fuck that!

  Reynolds had not just slipped an ace up his sleeve, he’d thrown the whole fucking deck out and changed the game.

  Now, instead of running and reacting, trying to figure out
what was going on, Reynolds had taken control. He’d lured Phraim-’Eh to them.

  The planet being the wannabe god’s homeworld only made the turnaround that much more satisfying.

  The pleasant pastoral planet that hung below was an odd backdrop to such a poignant moment, but Reynolds would take what he could get if it meant getting a real shot at taking out Phraim-’Eh for good.

  And he would.

  It didn’t matter what it took, Reynolds would see this Kurtherian line of evil aborted before it could cause any more harm to the universe than it already had.

  It all ended today.

  “Where are we, Takal?” he asked over the comm.

  “Putting the finishing touches on the program,” the inventor replied. “I only wish I had time to test it. I can’t be certain—”

  “There aren’t any wish-granting genies out here for you to winkle a wish out of, so you’re going to have to make sure it works in the sandbox, or we’re fucked,” Reynolds told him. “We’re not going to get more than one shot at this. If it fucks up, we’re dead.”

  “I feel better about it now, thank you,” Takal replied snidely.

  “Hey, it’s what I’m here for,” Reynolds shot back. “Seriously, though, this needs to work.”

  Tactical chuckled. “No pressure.”

  “Trackers show Phraim-’Eh is nearing the system,” Geroux reported.

  “I need to get back to the program, then,” Takal muttered. “I guess we’ll know if it works soon enough,” he added before cutting the channel.

  “If I were a betting person…” Maddox began.

  “Maybe you and Takal can go get a beer,” Reynolds told him. “I think at this point, I’d prefer a drunk Takal over a sober one.”

  “It’s not like the fate of our existence lies in his hands or anything,” Tactical said. “Right? Right?”

  “I’m seriously regretting having split my psyche,” Reynolds told Tactical. “Well, parts of it, at least.”

  “Now, now, girls,” XO chided. “You’re both pretty.”

  “We’ve got approximately five minutes before Phraim-’Eh pops in,” Geroux called.