“But why drop them, smash their bodies apart? Why go to the trouble of converting them only to drop them and smash them?”
Boyd nodded. It didn’t make sense.
“We saw the Skarak drop from the ship. They each came down like a meteor, but they survived the landing and were able to walk. Maybe the Skarak didn’t realize that human bodies would be so frail. Maybe they didn’t realize the bodies would break.”
“So they know us well enough to bend our minds, but not well enough to know how fragile our bodies are. Interesting.”
There came a shout from the barricade. A sudden build in the sounds of pulse rifle fire. Then a huge explosion that sent fire and dust billowing into the control room from the corridor.
“The Skarak!” a shout went up from the corridor.
Faction troopers began running back into the control room and took up positions in cover, their weapons trained on the opening to the corridor.
Skarak fire poured into the control room.
“They smashed the barricades!” a trooper called out. “Take cover!”
Captains began organizing their companies—troopers and flight deck crew all pressed into the defense.
“We should fall back and get you somewhere safe,” Poledri said to Kitzov, a hand on the leader’s shoulder.
“Yes, sir,” Thresh said. “This way, please.”
Kitzov drew a pistol from his hip holster and checked the weapon.
“I’m not abandoning these people. We fight.”
“The corridor reduces their numerical advantage,” Boyd said. “We can hold them as long as we have pulse power to spend.”
“Yes, Mr. Boyd,” Kitzov said and clapped a hand on Boyd’s shoulder.
Boyd felt important. He would defend Kitzov, protect him from the Skarak. Their shadows were already falling on the walls of the corridor as they came cautiously forward.
“We can take cover here. It’ll give us a great firing position.” Boyd led Kitzov to cover.
“Hold them back,” Kitzov said. “Faction. Freedom. Forever.”
Boyd heard his voice shouting along with everyone else in the control room as the Skarak came into view.
“Faction. Freedom. Forever.”
And then he opened fire.
12
Featherstone watched the holo-stage as the Resolute raced to Extremis. The strong magnetic field around the gas giant scattered the data from the forward surveillance drone, but as the Resolute closed in, more data was resolved from the chaos and displayed correctly. The image of the Skarak ships in orbit above Kalis finally appeared.
A message from the strike force leader, Admiral Garon aboard the Titan, appeared on the holo-stage.
“We have detected twelve Skarak warships above Kalis. All cruisers take flanking positions on the Titan. Major Featherstone, the Resolute will hold back with the rest of the strike force. As soon as we have the Skarak on the run, you may begin landing your Blue Stars. Good hunting. Garon out.”
The strike force formation appeared on the Resolute’s holo-stage. The Titan was a massive, near-spherical ship with a huge dome structure on the leading side that contained the drive field generator. Around the generator was a ring of high-energy laser emitters. All around the outer rim of the sphere was a ring of mega spitz cannons capable of delivering a truly devastating rate of plasma fire. Between the ring of lasers and the mega spitz were the dozen combat drone tubes and the mass cannon emplacements.
On the far side of the sphere, opposite the drive field generator, sat the Blade launch bays, all defended by yet more high-energy lasers. The fighters streamed out of the Titan until the entire one hundred and forty-four craft in the wing were deployed. They took up positions around the carrier in their twelve-fighter squadrons, all arranged in attack order, facing the Skarak above Kalis.
The Titan advanced with its weapons systems primed and ready for action. When the Titan opened fire, the first Skarak ship didn’t stand a chance.
The combat drone launch tubes flickered as drones raced out, heading toward the enemy. Their drive flares lit up the dark sphere of the Titan, and then the heavy fire from the mega spitz cannon lit up.
The rapid streams of plasma fire from the mega spitz cannon slammed into the upper hull of the dark, bulbous Skarak craft. The forward-facing rapiers were beginning to glow as the warship turned its primary weapon toward the Titan. Before the first discharge of the strange Skarak crackle beam could be delivered, the ship broke up. The rapiers snapped off, hull boiling away and exploding inward under the heavy punishment from the Titan’s mega spitz cannon.
The other eleven Skarak ships were turning and their crackle beams were on the point of discharge when the first combat drones reached their targets. The closest Skarak warship shimmered and appeared to ripple wildly as the combat drones collapsed their antimatter containment fields and exploded. A series of small, short-lived stars bursting to life in front of the three leading Skarak ships. Their primary weapons lost their glow as the crackle beams charge was interrupted and destabilized.
Then the remaining Skarak ships gave fire. The eight beams sliced across open space, twisting and flickering as they searched their way rapidly forward. In the blink of an eye, the beams connected with the Titan in a blinding flash.
“We’ve just lost contact with the Titan,” Knole said from the communication console. “Its ident code just vanished from my display.”
Featherstone looked at the image of the Titan on the holo-stage. The blue crackle beams flickered over its surface, thinning and turning white as they concentrated around the domed drive field generator. They blinked out of life a moment later, leaving the Titan unpowered and adrift.
The cruisers of the strike force, having lost contact with the flagship, moved in on the Skarak.
“Let’s get moving,” Featherstone said. “Hemel, get us in close enough to avoid their primary weapon.”
The Skarak fired again. A cruiser took a direct hit. It lost power and tumbled out of control toward the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.
Then the Blades moved in toward the Skarak warships. The lead squadron was met with a crackle beam that leapt from one Blade to the next, rapidly robbing them of all power. They drifted out of formation, tumbling this way and that as momentum took over.
That was when Skarak fighters launched from the warships, a dozen from each. They moved in jerking motions, leaping here and there, evading spitz gun fire from the Blades who moved to engage them. The Skarak fighters targeted the unpowered Blades. Each close-range blast smashed one of the helpless Blades even as their colleagues attempted to defend them.
A blast from a Skarak warship slammed into yet another cruiser and sent it tumbling.
The alien ships moved closer together, the fighters engaging the cruisers that dwarfed them, but their speed and rapid repositioning allowed the Skarak fighters to evade the cruisers’ array of spitz guns.
A squadron of Blades moved in close to a warship and poured a sustained barrage of spitz gun fire into the forward section just where the rapiers connected with the bulbous hull. The concentrated fire from a dozen guns targeted at a specific location made an impact. The hull seemed to ripple and shimmer, the ripples growing into huge waves that spread out. But the moment the Blades pulled up from their diving attack, their spitz guns no longer pouring fire onto the target, the rippling waves stopped and the warship fired its primary weapon into a cruiser on the flank of the Union formation.
Another cruiser fell dark as the Skarak weapon robbed it of power.
“They are knocking us out of action pretty easily,” Doc Cronin said from his position at the weapons console on the Resolute.
“They are not destroyed,” Featherstone said as he scanned the latest victim of Skarak fire. “It’s just interfering with their power systems. I’m not recording any hull damage at all.”
Just then, Featherstone’s sensor sweep showed him hundreds of dark spots moving out from the Skarak warships and heading
toward the stricken cruisers. He zoomed in and saw the Skarak soldiers streaming out across space toward the unpowered craft.
“Give me a channel to the fighter wing, all Blades,” Featherstone said. He stood up from his command chair.
“Open now,” Knole said.
“This is Major Featherstone. Skarak soldiers moving in on the unpowered cruisers. Don’t let them get there. Featherstone out.”
The major sat back down and watched the Blades sweep in on the small targets moving across to the drifting cruisers. He had a terrible feeling that the primary weapon was just softening the ship up for the real danger—the Skarak soldiers’ infiltration.
Then the Titan flickered back to life. Energy signatures lit up all across the dark sphere. Exterior lights over the name lit up just as the radial mega spitz cannon opened fire.
The stream of plasma pulses tore across space and slammed into the nearest Skarak ship. It stuttered and lurched under the assault before the mega spitz broke it open. Dark gray ooze spilled into the vacuum of space in thick rivers.
Another blast from the mega spitz smashed the rapiers away from another warship. The energy flicked out, moving across space in an unfocused arc. Eventually, they flipped back onto the Skarak warship. It erupted from within, sending fragments in all directions.
The remaining Skarak warships grouped in a tight formation, their rapiers pointing at the Titan. They delivered a single blast of blue energy that again disabled the massive spherical carrier. But the final cruiser had come close enough to bring its high-energy lasers into effective range. The cruiser delivered a rapid series of laser blasts that connected instantly with the Skarak ship’s rapier bundle. The ship moved and kept out of the Skarak’s field of fire.
The Blades were swooping in and around the Skarak soldiers traversing toward the stricken cruisers. Each Blade had a tail guard holding off the Skarak fighters that flickered here and there, attempting to hunt down and destroy the Blades in single ship-on-ship combat.
Another Skarak ship fell to the high-energy laser. The cruiser that had been tumbling toward Extremis’s atmosphere burst back to life and powered forward to support the cruiser engaging the Skarak at close range. It poured spitz gun fire as it advanced, narrowly avoiding a blast of crackling energy. Once in range, it activated its laser.
Another Skarak ship broke apart under the fire from the two cruisers, and the remaining aliens began to turn away.
The Titan flickered back to life as the two stricken cruisers regained some power, their high-energy lasers flickering to life and incinerating the Skarak soldiers that had almost completed their flight.
With the strike force back to full power, the remaining Skarak ships accelerated toward Extremis, gathering speed as they dived into the gravity well before turning and fleeing.
“This is the admiral.” Garon appeared on the Resolute’s holo-stage. “Cruisers, pursuit course and put some fire on their tails. Titan fighter wing, fall back to the Titan and hold defensive formation. Major Featherstone, deploy your Blue Stars to the surface of Kalis and bring in your man. Garon out.”
Featherstone stood up and stepped down from the command chair.
“Put us on the ground, Mr. Hemel. Everyone else, suit up. Let’s go find Kitzov.”
Sergeant Dorik stepped in front of Featherstone as he made his way toward the exit.
“Sir, there are still lots of Skarak soldiers on the surface, not to mention hundreds of Faction troopers. Maybe you should stay aboard the Resolute.”
“I appreciate the concern, Sergeant, but I haven’t come all this way to let someone else take the glory. I am a combat leader. I can handle myself. But if it makes you feel any better, you can babysit me while we are down there. Copy?”
Dorik smiled and nodded. “It’ll be an honor to keep you safe, sir.”
Featherstone grinned and made his way toward the kit locker.
The Resolute was a frigate redesigned for Blue Star operations, and Featherstone had made several modifications of his own. A large single kit locker for the entire company was one. No distinction was given to Blue Star leaders heading out into hostile territory—all Blue Stars kitted up for action together.
And Featherstone was ready for action. His promotion to major had been a disappointing blow initially. He was a competent and successful combat leader, but he also had an analytical mind and had planned several successful missions against the Faction. It had brought him to the attention of the Union Fleet Marine Command, and they had offered him a promotion.
Charles Featherstone was a Marine through and through. Coming from the officer training school on Terra, many of his peers were still at the rank of Marine captain. Featherstone knew major would take him out of combat and place him behind a holo-desk on Terra or one of the outposts still operating throughout the Scorpio system. He had refused the promotion, opting to remain captain, to remain on the front line with his Marines.
But the Union Marine command didn’t like being turned down, so they insisted he take the extra star and privileges of rank.
In a tense and ill-tempered meeting Featherstone offered to take the promotion, if he could remain a frontline Blue Star Marine. He was the only serving Marine major in either the regular Union Marines or the Blue Star Special Forces brigade to maintain active front line duty.
And now, here on Kalis, there was no way under the blue giant that he was going to sit on his ship and watch his Blue Stars go after Kitzov—the most dangerous man in the system, a thorn in the side of the Union, and a threat to all stability and law.
Major Featherstone was going to lead the hunt. It was his man trapped on Kalis. He would arrest the Faction Leader himself.
Pulling on his combat jacket and helmet, Featherstone felt the excitement and fear of battle. He was determined and committed, but he was not insane. Every Marine felt fear, or they soon fell. Fear was necessary to Featherstone, it kept him focused and alert to the danger. Any Marine who forgot fear took unnecessary risks, made foolish decisions. Yes, Marines faced danger, and death was never far away. Risks had to be taken in combat, and no leader could keep all their company safe, but the trick was to acknowledge fear, utilize fear, without succumbing to it.
Featherstone walked into the deployment bay and stepped up to the boarding ramp as the message came down from the command deck that the Resolute was about to touch down.
“Sir,” Dorik said, “let First Squad take point. It’s their turn.”
Featherstone looked at the faces of the Marines of First Squad, arranged in combat deployment order just behind him. They were ready for action and didn’t need the commanding officer charging down the guns for them.
“First Squad,” Featherstone said, “get ready. Second Squad, deploy right. Third, you go left. Fourth Squad, you are with Sergeant Dorik and me.”
The flashing light alerted the Marines that touchdown was imminent. The holo-display over the boarding ramp lit up and began the countdown.
As the numbers raced down, Featherstone felt his adrenaline and excitement rise higher.
Then the numbers turned red, the last few hundredths raced down, and the boarding ramp fell away, slamming onto the sharp gravel surface of Kalis.
Featherstone cupped his pistol in his hands and advanced—out into battle, out onto the trail of Kitzov.
13
Boyd leaned into the console he was using as cover, steadied his grip and his aim, and kept up a withering fire. Kitzov held his ground next to Boyd and maintained his fire. Boyd was impressed. He had been told that Kitzov was a coward for hiding, for never allowing himself to be seen by those he led, but here he was, on the front line, laying down fire as Skarak weapons fire fizzed around him. He shouted encouragement to the troopers.
Only when his pulse pistol failed to fire did he duck into cover.
Poledri ducked and scrambled over to him.
“Kitzov, are you okay?” Poledri pawed at Kitzov in a mild panic.
“I’m just fine. My pi
stol has failed.”
Boyd pulled his second pistol from under his right arm and handed it to the Faction Leader.
“This one is in top condition, sir,” Boyd said.
Kitzov took the pistol and checked it was ready for action. Then with a smile, he patted Poledri on the shoulder.
“Keep firing,” he said.
Poledri and Kitzov took up their positions and poured fire into the Skarak lurking back along the corridor. Only the intense fire held them back.
A rumble from the corridor was heard by all, and then a group of twisted, broken bodies came running in, wild unfocused eyes staring this way and that. They made directly for the defenders, fingers clawing at the air as they stumbled forward.
The group of defenders slackened off their fire, reluctant to shoot down their allies. Boyd knew they were a deadly threat and fired into the crowd, dropping the bodies as methodically as he could.
Kitzov could see the danger clearly enough and shouted to his followers. “They are no longer our shipmates, our friends and comrades. They are Skarak slaves now. We will be doing them a mercy to put them down. Open fire. Kill them all.”
The fire returned to its former intensity, and soon the rush of twisted bodies was stopped, and the floor lay littered with dead Faction men and women.
The Skarak came again, hot on the heels of the fallen possessed. They fired their crackling beams into the control room, destroying one console and catching several defenders in the arcing energy lines. Those caught by the crackling beams fell, quivering, their pulse rifles and pistols dropped.
But the defenders were too much, and they forced the Skarak back into the corridor once again.
Boyd watched them fall back, delivering well-aimed shots after them. The rounds slammed into a Skarak’s upper body, dispersing over the thick, viscous armor that absorbed the pulse fire.
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