The Apex Warriors

by Marc Stevens

  I slapped Klutch on the shoulders. “That was some of the best piloting skills I have ever seen Troop Master.”

  He gave me his signature grin. “You better save the compliment, because in seven minutes we are going to exit hyperspace. I sure hope there is not something occupying the same location.”

  I nodded in agreement. “I would like to take another swing at the Prule and maybe help bail the Fury out if it is possible.”

  Klutch shook his head. “That won’t be necessary Commander. Take a look at this.”

  I leaned back over his shoulder and looked at one of the displays he was touching. I squinted my eyes at the screen and realized what I was seeing. It was a rear sensor view of our hasty departure. It abruptly whited out and then ended.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “If I had to guess Commander, I would say the Prule got lucky with a perfect missile strike or Justice destroyed the Fury.”

  Klutch played the video back again in slow-motion. It was much easier to distinguish the Fury from the Prule this time around. The Fury was taking a pounding from the Prule, but it looked like it still had partial shields and functioning weapons. The screen again whited out and as it reset, we saw the Fury was now gone but so were several Prule ships that were close to it.

  Klutch looked up at me. “That was a high-order anti-matter explosion Commander. I read this as Justice letting the Prule close with the Fury, and then detonating the self-destruct scuttling charges so he could take out as many of those Throggs as possible.”

  He played it back one more time, and I had to agree with his conclusion. “As soon as we exit hyperspace launch another jump bouy with a message to Justice and the Chaalt fleet.”

  The Tibor gave me a thumbs up. “That will bring the Prule jumping right down our throats.” He cautioned.

  “As soon as you get the bouy launched, jump us close to the planet and we will assess Sael’s strike. I want to know if we can bloody the Throggs some more.”

  Klutch grinned back at me and nodded his approval. “I like it, Commander.”

  “Keep me posted Troop Master, I am going to check on Sael.”

  5

  I exited the flight deck and went back to the hold. Coonts and Tria met me as I entered. “What is Sael’s condition?”

  “The med pod is still trying to stabilize her condition. She is in a coma and has a fractured skull. Her brain is swollen and if the pressure is not eased soon, she will suffer permanent brain damage. Along with her severed appendage, she has a broken arm, leg, and several ribs on her right side. The blunt trauma and internal bleeding are minor, compared to her more serious injuries.” Coonts replied.

  Tria was studying me closely. “I sense you are wanting to go back and strike the Pruel again.”

  “Yes, but not necessarily for the reasons you think I am.”

  “You are wondering just like I am, about the gateway, yes?”

  Every time the pretty alien says something like that, I think she has the ability to read my mind. She has never admitted to it, regardless of how many times I continue to ask.

  I pulled her close and kissed her. “You know that you failed to comply with a direct order, again.”

  She laughed at me, and it seemed to relieve some of the stress that was bearing down on me. “I am sure your little wicked Earthman brain is already coming up with an inappropriate sanction for my insubordinate ways.”

  Coonts took this as his cue to join Klutch in the cockpit. I appreciated the consideration. I didn’t need it to be known, any more than it already was, just how un-commander-like I could be when it came to Tria’s lack of military decorum.

  “It is a Commander’s prerogative to dole out any punishment he sees fit.”

  Tria laughed at me and gave me a kiss, then her expression turned serious. “You believe as I do, there is another gate?”

  Before I could answer Klutch called back to us. “Dropping from hyperspace in one minute Commander.”

  I took Tria by the hand and pulled her along with me. “Yes, it does not make sense to have a one-way portal stop in the middle of nowhere. I think the Prule base was inherited by default, and it is just a waypoint to another location or gateway.”

  We went to the cockpit and stood behind Coonts and Klutch’s seats as the shuttle transitioned. The Milkyway galaxy suddenly appeared and dominated our viewscreen. It was not possible to see its entirety.

  “Bouy launched Commander,” Coonts said.

  “Take us back to the edge of the debris field Klutch, and find someplace to hide so we can do a follow-up strike assessment.”

  Tria reached over Coonts's shoulder. ”Wait one.” She said as she went to work on a display in front of Coonts. I looked closer at the menus on the screen. It was the shuttle’s weapons loadout. She arrived at the one she was looking for. It read mines in Chaalt.

  “I am detecting a lot of Prule ships jumping to hyperspace, and it's not hard to guess where they are heading,” Klutch warned.

  Tria confirmed her selection and hit launch. “Klutch, make a large loop before you transition.”

  The Troop Master kicked in the stardrives and made a big sweeping turn to port. The drives flaring to life would be detectable even at our current distance back to the target area. The shuttle had one hundred and twenty mines and Tria expended a hundred of them during the maneuver.

  “I will give the Prule another minute to get a good read on us, and then I will jump Commander.”

  I could see the mines laid out with blinking white boxes around them on our forward screen. Klutch made another turn and flew through the center of the minefield. He made sure the drives were pointed at the distant remains of the Prule base. We quickly surpassed the speed of light and left an unmistakable trail for the Prule to follow. The Troop Master killed the drives and reoriented the shuttle to get us pointed in the right direction. The Prule would pick up our jump signature but would have no indication as to where we were jumping. If Klutch timed it just right, and the Prule started dropping back into normal spacetime as we jumped out, there was the possibility they would not detect our return to the rogue planet.

  “I am detecting several spacetime distortions, the Prule have taken the bait,” Coonts called out.

  Klutch jumped the shuttle back to hyperspace before the Prule ships could return to normal space. Just over seven minutes later we transitioned to the edge of the rogue planet’s gravity well.

  “My sensors are detecting several explosions coming from the direction of the mines,” Klutch reported.

  I was hoping that our little ploy would keep the Prule occupied long enough for us to get a good look around. The first thing our sensors showed us, was an up-close view of the destructive power of the Chaalt planet killer torpedos. The ship junkyard that orbited the planet was now completely obscured by the tremendous amount of planetary debris. I was relieved to see the Prule ships we detected on our passive scanners were all concentrated around a large fragment of the Supercarrier. It was hard to believe that anything could have survived Sael’s attack, but the Prule would not be wasting their time with the wreckage unless something important was still intact.

  “Klutch, get us closer to that fragment of the Supercarrier. I want to know what the Prule are trying to salvage.”

  “Roger that Commander.” The Troop Master replied.

  Klutch took the assault shuttle down to the debris field and skipped in and out of the dust cloud that had formed around the planet. He weaved us around the largest objects in the dirt cloud and got us close enough our sensors could zoom in on the remains of the carrier. Hiding the shuttle was not going to be an issue with the amount of rubble that was moving in all directions. Klutch disengaged the gravity drive and we drifted with the rest of the waste that was more or less floating toward the carrier fragment. There were two hundred and three Prule ships surrounding the fragment, and all had their shields up in a defensive posture. In the center of the formation was a single Prule destroyer. It
was nestled in close to the carrier fragment. We had been aboard one of the big ugly blunt-nosed warships and knew it had a formidable array of weapons covering its hull from end to end. As we coasted closer to our target, we started getting better sensor definition and a sharper picture of what the Prule were up to. We could now see that the destroyer had both of its immense amidships cargo doors open and it had its shields down. A resource-gathering platform was moving slowly away from the wreckage toward the battleship. It had a large mass that covered most of its rear deck. The sensor read was too fuzzy and we could not determine what it was. The Chaalt sensors on the shuttle were of very good quality, but only a close second to those on the Fury. All were a distant third to the Oolaran instruments aboard the Legacy.

  I tapped Coonts on the shoulder. “Can you zoom in and clean up our sensor returns anymore?”

  “Not without activating the deepspace scanners or targeting sensors. If we continue on this heading, the passive array will achieve better results as we close with the target.”

  I looked over at Tria. “Do we have any torpedos?”

  Tria put her hand on Coonts's shoulder and pointed at the munitions screen. He got up and let Tria take the co-pilots seat. We watched as she went through the weapons inventory.

  “No, but we do have six heavy anti-ship missiles. They are jump capable like the torpedos and designed to destroy the largest capital ships Chaalt military forces have encountered. The Prule destroyer falls into that category.” Tria confirmed.

  Klutch was scrutinizing the sensor returns, and his eyes suddenly widened. “Commander, that looks very similar to a Hivemind’s entity reservoir, only that one is a lot, lot, bigger!” He exclaimed.

  I squinted at the sensor feed and my heart felt like it skipped a beat when my brain arrived at the same conclusion.

  I turned my eyes to Coonts and he was nodding his head in agreement. “I concur, Commander, it does resemble part of a Hivemind. The dimensions of the entity reservoir would make the Bio-machine immense.”

  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to kick a hornet’s nest one more time, I pointed at the target on the screen. “Tria, can you target the Hivemind with three anti-ship missiles when the resource platform drops its shields to transfer it to the destroyer.”

  Tria quickly tapped the target on her display and touched the missile selection. The shuttle’s AI tried to get a lock, but could not confirm it.

  “We will have to alter our course to get a firing solution,” Tria stated.

  The correction appeared on Klutch’s navigation screen. “We will have to move away from the debris cloud to get the proper angle for the shot.”

  “I doubt if we will get another chance like this again. Do it.” I ordered.

  “Commander, the cloaking and negation systems on this shuttle are not as good as the Fury’s. The probability is high they will get a read on our gravity drive at this range.” Klutch replied with a toothy grin.

  There was no logical reason why the crazy Tibor was smiling. I looked at the vector on the nav screen. We would be well away from the cover of the dust and rubble that was obscuring what was left of the dwarf planet. I looked at Tria and Coonts, and they both nodded affirmatively.

  I clapped Klutch on the shoulder. “Take us where we need to be Troop Master.”

  Klutch made the course correction, and as soon as we exited the debris cloud the shuttle’s passive sensors gave us a clear picture of the target area. Our luck was holding and there was no reaction from the Prule surrounding our target. I knew thinking like that always got me into trouble. If we were looking at part of a Hivemind, the damn thing must have been bigger than three resource gathering platforms put together. I looked down at Tria’s screen and a red circle appeared next to the missile selection. It translated to “launch” in the Chaalt language. The transition time to the target would only be seconds at our current range.

  “Klutch, as soon as Tria launches the missiles, I want a full-power scan of the local space then jump us out of here. Anywhere back toward our galaxy is fine by me. Make it a ten-minute transition, then drop from hyperspace long enough to assess the attack.”

  Klutch grinned again. “Roger that Commander!”

  The Prule were taking their time to make the transfer, and more than five minutes crept by. It felt like every weapon the Prule owned was focused directly on us. The shields of the resource-gathering platform finally went down, and Tria hit the launch command. We could feel the small vibrations of the rotary magazine cycle in the guts of the shuttle.

  “I am detecting multiple missile launches in the target area!” Klutch suddenly called out as he engaged the shuttle's shields.

  Klutch swept the space around us with the shuttle’s deepspace sensor array and turned us away from the target. We were rocked by a series of jarring explosions that knocked Coonts and me off our feet. The smile disappeared from Klutch’s face as he fought for control of the shuttle.

  “Get us out of here Klutch!” I yelled.

  “I am working on it, Commander!”

  The displays in front of both Tria and Klutch lit up with flashing lights, and an alarm started sounding.

  Tria canceled the alarm and called out a warning. “The cargo hatch is leaking atmosphere, and we lost two of our aft point defense weapons systems,”

  I pulled Coonts to his feet. “You work on the hatch and I will make sure Sael’s med pod is not damaged.”

  We ran from the flight deck and went down to the hold. Coonts grabbed a canister of nanite gel and sprayed the perimeter of the big cargo hatch with a generous coating. I carefully inspected the med pod. Its systems were operating to spec. Sael was still in a coma but in no immediate danger. I felt the shuttle finally jump and it was not the same sensation as before. This time around, I felt my skin crawling inside of my armor, and my stomach twisted into knots multiple times. I knew that was not the norm, and also wondered why it took so long.

  “Commander,” Coonts said. “I have the hatch sealed but the hardened nanite gel has rendered it inoperable. If we are forced to abandon the shuttle we will have to make a portal to evac the Principal Investigator’s med pod.”

  I gave Coonts a thumbs up and hoped it would not come to that.

  Tria called from the cockpit with more bad news. “Nathan, we took several missile strikes, and our aft shields partially buckled. The damage is not severe, but we are experiencing a fault on the jumpdrive. The Troop Master managed to engage the discharge capacitors but our transition was not properly synced with the drive.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t be a good thing. “I know that’s probably not ideal, but what does that mean for us?” I commed back.

  “The Troop Master’s destination point is no longer a surety, and we have no idea how long our transition duration will be,” Tria answered.

  Anywhere was better than where we were. As far as I was concerned, as long as we did not make a sudden exit transition in the middle of a Prule warship formation we still had options.

  I asked the next logical question my primitive Earthman brain could come up with. “Can we make repairs while we are in hyperspace?”

  “The shuttle’s AI is working to restore the systems, but that will not change our random transition time or destination,” Tria replied.

  Coonts and I went back up to the cockpit and stood behind Tria and Klutch while they worked to get all the shuttles systems back online. Klutch looked over at Tria and tossed his hands up. Tria leaned away from her displays and nodded in agreement.

  She looked back at me. “We have done all we can for now, and the AI is confirming our efforts are working. The jump systems should be back to eighty-six percent of normal efficiency within the hour. The shields are back to ninety-two percent but the aft rail cannons are a total loss. Our cloaking capability is at ninety percent of capability and the negation systems are still functioning at optimal settings.”

  The pretty alien’s assessment eased my worry, but he
r statement was an inequitable confidence builder. Just like our trip through the gateway, we didn’t know where nor when we were going to arrive at our undetermined destination.

  Klutch saw the frown on my face and decided a change in subject was in order. “Commander, I should have a partial sensor read on the strike before we jumped out. Would you like to see it?”

  The Tibor knew we were all anxious to see but made a show of waiting for my acknowledgment.

  It was Coonts’s turn to frown and he elbowed Klutch in the shoulder. “Quit dicking around and show us!”

  There were times when I wish I had not used that phrase in front of my crew so often that they decided to make it part of their vocabulary. This was not one of those times. My stern look made the Troop Master run the video. We leaned in to get a close-up look at the screen. Tria had staggered the strike so the salvo arrived seconds apart. The screen flickered three times in triphammer succession as the target area flared brilliant white. As the view returned to normal, the resource gathering platform was no longer visible in the target area. The Prule battleship was reduced to white-hot scraps that were exiting the strike zone in all directions. The hostile ships closest to the detonations were heavily damaged and scattered around the wreckage of the carrier fragment. The video abruptly ended when the shuttle transitioned.

  I pumped my fist and yelled “Yes!”

  My jubilance was promptly canceled when my guts made a sudden twist. The shuttle suddenly transitioned back to normal spacetime.

  Threat warnings started populating the forward screen and Klutch verified our location. “Commander, we are close to our previous jump point and not far from the minefield we left as a present to the Prule.”