“Stand to,” Dorik said to the figure. “Surrender. Drop all weapons.”
Boyd looked out at the Blue Star hangar, the assault teams, and the sergeant. He grinned broadly and pulled off his helmet. He dropped it to the deck.
“Drop my weapons?” he said. “I don’t need a pulse rifle to take you down, Rik.”
“Well, shoot me out of an airlock, if it isn’t Sergeant Will Boyd. What are you doing here alive, you old scroat?”
Boyd walked over to Dorik, hand out, a broad smile across his face. “You’re the old one, Rik.”
“Yeah.” Dorik clamped hold of Boyd’s hand. “Older, wiser, more handsome.”
“Yeah, humble too,” Boyd returned.
Dorik wrapped an arm over Boyd’s shoulders and dismissed the assault teams with a wave of his other hand. “You okay? You fit enough to come up to the command deck? I know a few Blue Stars who’ll be happy to see you alive, and a few others who will have lost their bets.”
“The Faction ship,” Boyd said as he walked along with Dorik. “It’s the Silence. What happened to it?”
“Got away,” Dorik said. “The major though it was better to save your kravin ass and let that one go.”
Boyd felt a huge wave of relief at the thought that Thresh was still alive, but there was still a hit to his professional pride that the job he’d set out to do had not been done.
“Kitzov is on that ship. It’s the Silence, the Faction flagship. We should pursue.”
Dorik became serious. “Copy that, Sergeant.” Dorik tapped his wrist-mounted holo-stage and opened a channel to Featherstone, even though the command deck was only a few meters away.
“Major. The ship escaping is the Silence, Kitzov’s own shi—”
Boyd and Dorik walked onto the command deck before Featherstone could reply. On the main holo-stage was the image of Colonel Lawrence, Commanding Officer of the Blue Star Battalion.
“Fall back to Supra and form up a on the lower flank of the Fleet,” the colonel was saying. All eyes were on his image.
“Immediately,” Featherstone said. He pointed at Hemel in the pilot seat to get the Resolute underway on its new heading.
“We have found the Skarak armada,” the colonel continued. “It is moving toward Supra. The Skarak mastership and twenty warships. The fleet is deploying the Titan and a dozen cruisers to that location, all available frigates and gunships to form up. You will be one of four Blue Star frigates in the attack group. You may be called upon for a special mission. Will you be ready to lead your company, Major?”
“Yes, sir. You know I never wanted a desk. Front line is the bottom line, sir.”
“I’ll drag you off the deck of that ship one day, Charles,” the colonel said, “but I know you’ll do a great job, whatever you are called on to do.”
“Copy that, sir.” Featherstone saw the Resolute’s new heading on the holo-stage as the map was displayed next to the image of the colonel. “And we will be in formation in less than forty minutes, sir.”
“Good work, Charles. Lawrence out.”
Colonel Lawrence blinked out and the map of the region and the Resolute’s heading grew to fill the image.
Featherstone turned around and looked down at Boyd.
“Sergeant Boyd. Welcome back.”
“Maybe you won’t be so keen to welcome me when I deliver my report, sir,” Boyd stepped forward a pace. “I let Kitzov get away…again. He was on that ship, the Silence.”
“He’s got more lives than a Terra dune cat, that one, but even a dune cat runs out of lives eventually.”
“And what’s more, I’ve blown my cover. They found me out. I was running for my life.”
“And you got away. A Blue Star is not expected to throw their lives away if the mission does not go to plan. No mission goes to plan, Sergeant. You got close, you had a shot, you followed your orders and you survived. Any mission you walk away from had some degree of success. I’m not going to ask you to fall on your sword over this, Sergeant Boyd. But we are heading into some heat with the Skarak, and I’ll need all hands on deck. You feel ready to suit up in some proper Blue Star kit?”
Boyd nodded. “Yes, sir.
“I think you should stop by the med-bay first, though.” Featherstone looked at the various bruises on Boyd’s face.
“I’m just fine, sir.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Sergeant. That was an order. Get checked out, then suit up and fall in. Copy?”
“Yes, sir,” Boyd said with a smile, then he saluted the major.
Featherstone nodded. “Doc, take the sergeant down to the med-bay and get him patched up. Be quick about it. The Blue Star Marines are going into battle.”
13
Boyd stood in the hangar with the assault team. Despite the soreness of some of his bruises, he felt good. It was good to be back. His Blue Star suit fit him perfectly. Every system on the suit was operating at peak efficiency, his faceplate was perfectly clear, and the holo-image displayed on his enhanced data view was crisp and updated by the second. It was a major upgrade from the Faction kit he had been forced to work with on the Odium Fist.
The Odium Fist—it had become his home. He had infiltrated so deeply, so completely, that sometimes he allowed himself to forget he was a spy, an infiltrator. It made the deception easier to carry and more convincing. Having seen the old raider tumble away and explode in the face of the Skarak warship had been easy at first, but now it came back with hints of remorse. He wouldn’t miss Poledri or Noland or any of the other flight deck crew. They were all Faction pirates, criminals, and terrorists, and he was sworn to end them by any means necessary.
But now the Faction was a sideshow compared to the Skarak invasion.
In his time with the Faction, the Skarak had been largely ignored. Only now, back among his Blue Stars, did he realize the extent of the Skarak threat. Skarak ships had been probing the system for months, but the Faction group he’d been with had only been vaguely aware of them. Kitzov’s orders had first been to hide away and let the Union take the brunt of the Skarak attacks. Then, with the threat growing, Kitzov had seen an opportunity to strengthen his position. By destroying Union freighters, he weakened the Union and made them more vulnerable to the Skarak threat.
Now Boyd realized the importance of those freighter convoys: to move as much black ice to the inner system as possible, to be prepared for the main Skarak attack, which now appeared to have come.
Tactical intelligence on Terra had calculated the Skarak threat to the Scorpio System. The alien invaders were there to strip resources to power their own civilization, wherever it may lie, somewhere out beyond the Sphere in another star system. Surveillance drones had been sent to scour nearby star systems, but the Skarak had not yet been found.
So the fleet stayed in its home system, ready to repel the Skarak every time they attacked.
But Boyd knew something of the Skarak that tactical intelligence seemed not to know. The Skarak were not only interested in energy or mineral resources, they seemed attracted to human resources as well. Every time Boyd had encountered them, they had scooped up as many living bodies as possible and turned them into lifeless, dead-eyed Skarak soldiers. There was something more to the Skarak threat than an aggressive war for material.
Boyd looked at the small holo-stage on the hangar deck. The Resolute was falling into formation with a large attack group centered around the Titan, a massive carrier. A dozen cruisers surrounded it, while the Resolute drifted into formation at the lower flank alongside a small group of Blue Star frigates.
The frigates were standard Union frigates that had been customized for Blue Star operations. They were lightly armed with only one mass beam emitter and one high-energy laser. They had a full complement of spitz guns, but the main weapon of the Blue Star ships were the Blue Stars themselves. Highly-trained, highly-skilled special operations Marines. Their equipment was equal to what the regular Marines used, but their skill levels set them apart. They were re
ady to be tasked with infiltration missions, going behind enemy lines, small scale surgical strike missions, capture, assassination, any mission that a battalion of regulars could not handle. A Blue Star company was the dagger when a planet buster combat drone would not do.
The Blue Star frigates’ idents appeared on the holo-stage as the Resolute slipped into formation.
Boyd had been out of the battalion on his infiltration mission for so long that he did not recognize one of the frigates. The Forthright was a new ship.
“She’s a beaut,” Dorik said as he walked into the hangar. “But she’s nothing on the Resolute. They are fresh off the farm. This is their first mission.”
The farm was the name given to Forge Farm, the Blue Star training and administration headquarters on Terra. Built on the site of the first Marine training center on Terra, it was talked about with admiration by the regulars, many of whom longed for a posting to the Blue Stars.
Boyd recognized the other two frigates. The Bold and the Insistence were tried and tested Blue Star companies. The Bold had been partnered with the Resolute on more than one mission, and Boyd had friends amongst the Bold company.
“I haven’t seen four Blue Stars on one mission before,” Boyd said. “This must be serious.”
“You bet,” Dorik said. “Listen up. We’ve got a transport coming in now from the Reyes Foundation. We need to jettison this shuttle to make room.”
As Dorik organized the hangar, arranging the Marines and preparing them to shove the shuttle that Boyd had used to escape the Faction out through the hangar door, Boyd looked at the holo-stage and spotted the incoming signal—a small delivery transport heading to the Resolute.
“The Reyes Foundation?” Boyd said, looking at the incoming signal. “That’s weapons design. Are we going to test a new weapon?”
“Looks that way. This must be the special mission the colonel talked about.” Dorik said, looking back at Boyd. “You want to help here?” He nodded toward the shuttle.
Boyd walked over and helped shove the shuttle across the hangar. The gravity plates reset to zero under it and allowed the shuttle to slide effortlessly across the deck, the Marines merely steering it toward the open doors. The shuttle drifted out beyond the deflection shield that held the atmosphere inside the hangar, then tumbled away before receiving a nudge from a grapple beam that sent it falling away at speed. As it went, Boyd felt his time with the Faction tumble away with it, leaving only the memory of one. Thresh.
With the shuttle a distant speck, the foundation’s transport maneuvered alongside the Resolute’s hangar and moved a large, black, dome-shaped structure with a square base inside. The instant the dome was delivered, the transport peeled away and was gone, lost amongst the gunships and fighters that hung in formation around the massive Titan.
“What is it?” Boyd said, walking round the black dome. It was as big as a ground speeder but solid with no seams and no obvious entrance.
“That is need-to-know, Boyd,” Dorik said.
“Do I need to know?” Boyd asked. He touched the side of the device.
“Yes, you all need to know,” Major Featherstone said as he marched onto the hangar deck.
Boyd and Dorik came to attention along with every other Blue Star Marine. With a wave of his hand, Featherstone instructed them to stand at ease.
“This is a new fleet weapon from the Reyes Foundation. It’s called a Demon Detonator. It’s a mass field generator designed to collapse space and matter in a three-hundred-meter radius. It’s like a mass beam but much more powerful. It can’t be directed as a beam, and it currently can’t work with a combat drone delivery system. The drive fields and mass field don’t get along, and by that, I mean they explode. Due to its limitations in this regard, the Demon needs to be delivered manually and placed at the site of detonation. Sounds like a job for the Blue Stars to me.”
The hangar erupted with a loud shout of agreement from the Marines as they called out their battle-cry, their rallying call of ‘Blue Stars.’ The shout sent a shiver of excitement down Boyd’s spine. It was good to be back.
“The Blue Star frigates in the attack group are each being given a Demon Detonator. Our orders are to stand by. The carrier group will meet the Skarak head on and then kick their scaly hides. Once the attack group has engaged, the Blue Stars will attempt to deliver the Demons to the hull of the Skarak mastership. Tactical intelligence believes that with the mastership out of action, the warships will disengage.”
“Sir?” Boyd raised his hand. “A mastership?”
“We’ve all encountered the warships. A mastership is much larger. We have little to no understanding of its capabilities, but it is believed by tactical intelligence to be much more powerful than a dozen warships. The fleet has not engaged one yet, but there is one heading directly toward Supra as we speak. The carrier attack group and the Blue Stars will take on this alien giant, and we will take it down.”
A siren sounded across the hangar deck. It rang out across the ship and across every ship of the attack group. The noise of excited and nervous chatter built until Major Featherstone held up his hand for quiet.
Then a message came over the Resolute’s ship-wide communication systems, directly from the Titan and to all ships.
“Attention all hands. This is Admiral Garon of the Titan. Skarak armada now confirmed to be on final approach to Supra Eight. Stand by for attack orders.”
The message ended. The Blue Stars all stirred but remained silent and calm.
“Be ready, Blue Stars,” Featherstone said. “The attack group will engage, and we will move to deploy the Demon once we have a line of attack on the mastership. The Resolute will move us into position and the assault Marines will carry the demon, traversing space to the mastership. Stand by, Blue Stars.”
Featherstone left the hangar deck. Boyd looked at the Demon before moving to the small holo-stage at the side of the hangar. The Marines were all looking, watching the attack group move to intercept the Skarak armada.
Boyd tapped the holo-stage and enlarged it for all to see.
The Titan was moving off, away from Supra toward the outermost moon, Supra Eight.
“There are half a million people on Eight,” Dorik said.
“My brother’s on Eight,” a Marine said from the back. “He’s local militia.”
The cruisers moved ahead of the Titan. They fired a salvo of combat drones, every tube delivering a drone to the attack that raced away toward the Skarak. As they closed in, the warships opened fire with their primary weapon. The blue crackle beams erupted and struck forward to connect with the salvo.
The drones detonated as the blue beams struck, disintegrating the outer shells until the cores collapsed. A wall of plasma fire blinded the sensors to the Skarak fleet until they burst through, throwing cooling clouds of plasma aside in huge, billowing waves.
The combined attack group fired with their spitz guns. The long-range pulse weapons filled space with a billion flickering pulse rounds that closed in on the lead Skarak ship. The Titan fired its spitz cannons—the bundled spitz guns with twenty pulse emitters apiece.
Fire rippled over the leading ship, its forward rapier cluster collapsing under the barrage.
Then the fleet launched a second combat drone salvo before the Skarak moved into range of the energy weapons.
Across the group, mass beams and high-energy lasers flickered on, slamming into the closest of the Skarak. A second warship took a devastating volley and its forward hull collapsed under the weight of a dozen mass beams.
Then the Skarak opened fire.
Blue crackle beams burst from the rapier clusters at the front of the warships. When the mastership fired, it sent huge billowing beams of blue crackle energy toward the cruisers that dwarfed the entire warship attack.
The cruisers broke formation and scattered as the crackle beams struck. The blue lighting from several crackle beams rippled over one cruiser’s hull and then all power was lost.
The
huge blue beam from the mastership slammed into the stricken cruiser, breaking it in two in a second. The broken cruiser’s core erupted, engulfing the broken ship in white plasma fire.
The mastership moved on and into position over Supra Eight. Her lower hull opened, appearing to melt away, and thousands upon thousands of small craft dropped through the opening, all heading to the moon’s surface.
“They are going for the people on Supra Eight,” Boyd said. “That mastership is just coming to collect them all.” Boyd looked at Dorik. His old friend appeared to be a million kilometers away, his eyes fixed on the holo-image yet strangely vacant. Boyd nudged him. “Say, Rik, the Skarak, they just want the people, right?”
Boyd looked at Dorik as he turned and looked vaguely at Boyd. He nodded and then looked back at the image of the small ships dropping away from the mastership.
The Titan moved between the scattered cruisers and fired its array of weapons. The carrier’s fighter wing sped forward and engaged the smaller craft in ship-to-ship combat across the surface of Supra Eight.
The Titan fired on one Skarak warship and destroyed its forward rapier cluster, and then a second fell quickly before the Titan itself took fire from the mastership. The Titan fell dark as the blue crackle beam flickered over its surface.
The holo-stage showed the Resolute and other Blue Star frigates advancing toward the mastership.
“Okay, Blue Stars,” Boyd said. “This is it. We’re going in. Check your suits. Check your weapons. Then stand by to move this Demon Detonator.”
Major Featherstone walked back onto the hangar deck. He tapped his wrist-mounted holo-stage and displayed an image of the mastership.
“Listen up. This is our target—a section of the hull of the mastership.” Featherstone pointed at the image.
Boyd noticed Dorik still looking at the feed from the main attack on the Skarak armada. He nudged him hard and drew his attention to the major.
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