The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

  “The dreadnought that hit Earth carried three times as many fighters,” Makarov said, crossing her arms and looking at Andere. “They keeping a reserve to throw at us or do they think they sent up enough to beat the gunships?”

  “Toth weren’t afraid of casualties,” the XO said. “Neither are the Kesaht. Economy of force isn’t one of their principles of war. If they had the fighters, they’d send them.”

  “Big if,” Makarov said. “We don’t know how many Toth survived the destruction of their home world. Those could be the last of their combat void fighters.”

  “They have plenty of Kesaht cannon fodder,” Andere said. “Why send a Toth ship for this?”

  “The galaxy doesn’t know the Toth are behind the Kesaht,” Makarov said. “Earth and the Lady aren’t exactly eager to mention the Toth…begs a number of questions we don’t want to answer. Plus, the only proof we have is a couple Toth warrior bodies left behind on Balmaseda…which isn’t definitive. The overlord sent that ship to keep blame off the Kesaht.”

  “Does this change the operation?” Eneko called out.

  “Negative.” Makarov shook her head. “Let’s see if we can poke the hornet’s nest.”

  ****

  Commander Belasco heard the tick of her ventilation tubes as she breathed deeply within her flight helmet and looked up at the Raptor bombers flying just above her Shrike fighter. The larger craft flew perilously close to each other, nearly bumping stubby wings while in their void configuration.

  Ahead, Ouranos hung in the void, deep blue oceans and a decent hurricane making up most of what she could see on the planet. The icon for the Toth dreadnought was a single pulsing, still-distant icon on the inside of her canopy. She could make out the pale-red glint of the ship’s hull, just a sliver against the night.

  An alert flashed on her HUD.

  “Trident squadron, this is Amazon,” she sent over the IR network between the Ibarran ships. “Rail cannons are laid. Slave the launch sequence to the Warsaw’s fire control and stand by.”

  “Think we’ll get the Toth’s attention?” asked her wingman, Garrote.

  “Fighting Toth is in Makarov’s blood,” Belasco said as two Raptor squadrons sent ready signals through the IR. Glancing up, she saw weapon bays open across the bomber’s underside. Launch rails bearing torpedoes snapped out of the internal bays.

  “Bombardiers,” Belasco said, tightening her grip on her control stick as a timer popped up on her HUD, “reminder to engage self-destruct protocols in the event you lose positive control of your munitions. Don’t risk collateral damage to the Cyrgal or the planet.”

  “There’s only one alien down there,” Garrote said. “Big sky, little bullet. The chances of hurting him-her-it are—”

  “Instructions from the admiral stand,” the wing commander said. “Stand by to launch.”

  “Speaking of big sky, little bullet…” Garrote mumbled.

  The timer hit zero, and less than a heartbeat later, silver flashes snapped around the Ibarra attack wing. Rail shots from the Warsaw and her fleet tore through the void, missing the fighters and bombers by scant meters. Belasco winced as the hypervelocity slugs shot past, finding little comfort in knowing that if the fleet gunners were off by a hairsbreadth, she wouldn’t even realize she’d been hit as a poorly aimed shell atomized her fighter.

  Raptors fired their torpedoes with a flash of electromagnetic coils, the weapons flying at a significantly slower speed than the rail cannon shots. The torpedoes’ engines remained off as the munitions sped away.

  Belasco watched as status reports trickled in from the bombers.

  “Warsaw, this is Amazon,” she sent back to the fleet. “Dumb fire complete. Bombardiers have tight IR lock on their fish. Passing rail shots should mask the launch, if the Toth were even paying attention.”

  “Roger, Amazon,” Admiral Makarov sent. “Stand by for attack guidance.”

  “Standing by,” Belasco said and cut the transmission.

  “We’ve got to keep closing on the enemy for the IR to hold, reduce command lag,” Garrote said. “What’re the chances the Toth’ll decide to come out and play with us?”

  “Don’t know, but if they do, we’ll teach them a painful lesson in just how much better Ibarra pilots are compared to those amateurs from the Terran Union,” she said. “I don’t think I’d mind a decent dogfight, especially if the torps can’t get through the shields. Hate to go through all this trouble and have nothing to show for it.”

  “From your lips to Saint Kallen’s ears,” Garrote said.

  Belasco tapped a fist against her chest and felt sweat seep into her flight suit as shields flared on the Last Light. The first rail shells had hit home.

  ****

  In the holo tank, rail shells peppered the Toth dreadnought. Shields flared as energy waves rippled over the surface and swept toward the prow.

  Makarov nibbled on the inside of her lip as more data poured in.

  “She’s rotating her shields,” Makarov said. “We didn’t see this tech during their incursion on Earth.”

  “That was decades ago,” Andere said. “They must have learned a lesson from that loss.”

  “Guns, can you figure out the harmonics?” the admiral asked.

  “With enough data,” Eneko said. “If the shields were static, we could slip shells through the low points in the oscillation. But if they’re rotating across several nodes, then it—”

  “Comms, get me the Armor on the line,” Makarov said. “See if they can manage a shot from dirtside with their rail systems.”

  “Armor report they are decisively engaged with a Toth assault,” the lieutenant said. “Still want me to send the request?”

  “Belay that.” Makarov frowned. Everything was coming to a head at once, naturally. She wondered if the Cyrgal had their own equivalent to Murphy’s Law. “Guns, keep firing. Find an opening through the Toth shields.”

  In the holo tank, engines along the Concord of Might’s hull flared, maneuvering it into an orbital path that would come perilously close to the Toth dreadnought.

  She opened a channel to the ship and the Cyrgal with the cyborg eye appeared.

  “The Toth vessel is heavily shielded,” she said. “Our shells aren’t having any effect, but we’re working to find an opening. Our sensor data is degraded by distance. Can your ship—”

  “We will crush them,” the Cyrgal said. “There is no reason to worry. Cease your fire. Any damage we suffer at your hands will be returned a hundredfold.” The channel closed.

  “Now they’re motivated,” Andere muttered.

  Makarov placed her hands behind her back as the icons for the Cyrgal gunships and Toth fighters closed in on each other.

  The admiral opened a ship-wide channel. “All hands, the battle is joined. Warszawo walcz.”

  ****

  Belasco maneuvered her Shrike fighter farther away from her wingman as the wing settled against the upper reaches of Ouranos’s atmosphere. The exosphere wasn’t thick enough to affect her fighter’s maneuvers, but looking down to the planet a thousand kilometers below had her itching to reconfigure the Shrike to extend the wings waiting in the fuselage.

  If I have to bail, at least I’ll have something to land on…probably water, but that’s better than floating Dutchman, she thought.

  “Hostile fighters and the gunships about to make a pass,” Garrote said.

  Dots of explosions burst to life between the Last Light and the Cyrgal ship. She zoomed in on the action and her HUD put an overlay of the dogfight across her vision.

  The Toth fighters were shaped like serrated daggers, each carrying a single Toth warrior that used all six limbs to pilot. Bolts of energy snapped out from the dagger fighters and tore into the gunships. The forward wedge of the Cyrgal were torn apart, shredded by the Toth’s combined fire. Second and third echelons spread apart, but the gunships were almost glacially slow compared to the Toth.

  Dagger fighters ripped through the Cyrgal,
landing hits with ease.

  Turrets on the gunships managed to take down a few of the Toth, and missiles corkscrewed out of the sides and tops of the gunships, chasing after dagger fighters.

  Belasco grimaced as a Toth swept past the nose of a gunship, leading the pursuing missile into the Cyrgal’s cockpit.

  The mass of Toth fighters continued through the gunships on their way to the Concord of Might. The gunship formation lurched onward, bleeding air from perforated hulls and trailing debris from destroyed ships.

  “The Toth are better than the Kesaht,” Garrote said. “I’ll give them that.”

  “Their electric countermeasures are poor,” Belasco said. “Cyrgal missiles had a higher hit rate than their turrets.”

  A lance of dirty-yellow energy struck out from one of the detached hull sections of the Concord of Might and hit the prow of the dreadnought. The beam broke against the shields and electricity arced against the inside of the shields like lightning crawling along the bottom of a storm cloud.

  Belasco’s HUD swam with static for a moment.

  “By all that is holy,” she said as she watched a hull section retract back into a Cyrgal ship and the edge of another glow to life.

  “Amazon,” Eneko came up on her HUD. “Enemy shields held, but there was a significant disruption to the harmonics during the strike. Need you to coordinate torpedo strikes with the lance hits.”

  “Are the Cyrgal sharing firing data?” she asked.

  “Negative. We’re asking, but they’re not interested in sharing.”

  “My warheads are…ninety seconds out,” she said. “We need a time on target to—”

  Another lance of energy scoured across the top of the Toth ship and Belasco’s ears filled with static.

  “—well aware!” Eneko said. “Do what you can.”

  “Blast it.” Belasco opened a channel to the Raptors. “Bombardiers, stagger warheads at ten-second intervals. Set to point detonation.”

  “Not sure how the shields will affect the IR controls,” said one of the pilots. “If we set to PD and the torp goes rogue…”

  “We’re taking that risk. We’re here to draw blood, not count coup,” she said.

  Small warning icons peppered around the Cyrgal ship as missiles streamed from launch tubes.

  “Maybe they figured things out for themselves,” Belasco muttered.

  Giant crystals on the dreadnought’s hull angled toward the Cyrgal ship. A torrent of blue teardrops of energy fire erupted, bolting through the void and annihilating what remained of the gunship formation, the Toth fire overtaking some of their own fighters before they could maneuver out of the way. Blasts struck the Cyrgal hull, leaving blackened craters around the apex of the cone.

  “Lead warhead closing to final sprint,” a bombardier sent.

  “Hold for a Cyrgal strike,” Belasco said. “Come on…come on.”

  A hull section attached to the Cyrgal ship glowed bright…and exploded. Toth fighters danced along the ship’s hull, targeting the thick power cables running from the main ship to the weapon sections.

  “Not good,” Belasco said. “Not good at all.”

  The Last Light’s fire slackened, but focused on the Cyrgal weapon sections, knocking them out one at a time.

  “Amazon,” Eneko sent, “stand by for a mass fire strike on the enemy’s stern. Set warheads to penetrate at 475-meter intervals from the target location.”

  A point blinked on the dreadnought’s rear. Belasco extrapolated data and sent it to the bombers.

  “Bombardiers, ready to sprint your fish in five…four…” Belasco caught her breath as rail shells slapped into the Toth shields.

  “Balls, now! Sprint sprint sprint!”

  Activated torpedoes came up in her display as the afterburners came to life, propelling them forward.

  Belasco tapped knuckles to her heart and said a quick prayer to Saint Kallen as the torpedoes closed on the target.

  Warheads exploded against the shields, but a handful made it through the disruption caused by the fleet’s shelling.

  “Lost contact!” a bombardier shouted. More crewmen echoed the call.

  “Big ship. Don’t miss,” Belasco whispered.

  A fireball erupted between a cluster of engine cones on the back of the dreadnought as a denethrite warhead struck home, exploding on contact. Another torpedo struck the base of a coral-like tower, snapping it off at the base and sending it cartwheeling against the hull. The segment shattered into pieces and swept forward like sand carried by the wind.

  A handful of explosions flared among the engines and across the dorsal hull. The energy cannon fire tapered away to nothing.

  Belasco punched a fist up next to her helmet.

  “Warsaw, we’ve got effects on target,” she sent back to the fleet.

  On the Cyrgal ship, a pair of weapon sections glowed bright. One petered out, burning into a cinder. The other lashed out at the Toth ship, the blow beating against the shields for a moment, then tearing through. The lance scoured across the dreadnought for a heartbeat, ripping apart cannons and blackening a scar against the hull.

  The Toth warship rolled to one side, pushed by the Cyrgal strike.

  “Ha ha! That got her!” Garrote shouted.

  The Toth ship flipped over, exposing the bottom section to the Cyrgal. The other side of the Toth ship was undamaged and looked to be just as well armed as the other half.

  The engine glow on the Last Light faded away.

  “Raptors, prep rail cannon launch—” Belasco stopped as crystal cannons fired from the other side of the dreadnought, sweeping across the Cyrgal ship. Hull fragments were blasted loose, the few remaining weapon segments were destroyed, and the ship’s cone skewed to one side as an internal explosion sent cracks through the ship’s forward hull.

  A pair of bolts slashed overhead and Belasco dove toward the planet. Three of her Raptors blinked red on her HUD. Destroyed.

  “Amazon, this is Makarov,” came from the Warsaw. “Break off your attack and make for an island along the southern coast. Sending the location now.”

  Belasco grunted as g-forces threatened to gray out her vision in the steep dive. A Toth bolt swiped past her nose, sending a buffet of turbulence through the thin air.

  “Roger…Warsaw,” she sent back.

  Fire grew around her heat shields as her Shrike made for Ouranos’s surface.

  “Trident, make for this location,” she said, sharing the location of the last Aeon with the rest of her wing as they followed her into the atmosphere. “Switch to atmo configuration soon as we hit chop.”

  Blue light from dissipating energy bolts splashed across her fuselage. A fireball erupted behind her and curses swept over the comms. Garrote’s icon flashed red.

  “Toth ship moving over the horizon,” Eneko sent from the Warsaw. “Need you to make pickup and get the Aeon and the Armor back to the ship before they make an orbit.”

  “Heard,” she said as she leveled out a few miles over the ocean. Her fighter wobbled through the air like she was driving on an icy road until she extended the forward-sweeping wings and a rudder from her hull, stabilizing her flight.

  “Warsaw, the Cyrgal going to finish off the Toth?” she asked.

  “Doubtful. The Concord of Might is dead in space,” Eneko said. “The fleet can’t withstand the level of firepower the Toth still have. We need to leave this system soon as we have what we came for.”

  She glanced over the side to a string of tropical islands as a miles-wide murmuration of birds shifted against the coastline.

  “Roger, Warsaw, we can get postcards some other time. Give me relay comms to the Destrier making the pickup.”

  Chapter 19

  Roland emerged from the stairwell and his IR came to life with active channels.

  “Fifteen landers to the east,” Araki sent.

  “Northern wave engaged by Cyrgal fighters. Total loss,” Morrigan said.

  “Templar four on the net,” Roland sa
id.

  “Bring the principals to me at the hut,” Martel said. “The Warsaw wants to speak with them.”

  He stepped out of the building and saw a battle raging in the twilight sky. Dagger-shaped fighters fought the larger, less maneuverable Cyrgal ships. Balls of fire streaked down, but slowed just before they struck the ocean. There was no outgoing or incoming fire from the island.

  Roland hurried Marc and Trinia back toward the hut.

  “What did we miss?” Roland asked.

  “Toth,” Nicodemus said as he ran over to join them.

  Trinia slid to a stop, her face darkening from gold to bronze. “No…not them…” She backpedaled toward the long house.

  “We’ll protect you.” Marc put his hands against the small of her back and she yelped with pain. “Sorry. Keep forgetting about the cold.”

  “Those are Toth fighters,” Roland said. “No one’s seen those since the Ember War ended.”

  “We can guess why they’re here,” Marc said to Trinia. “Let’s go talk to the big cheese and figure out how to get you away from them, yeah?”

  “This is your fault,” Trinia said. “If you hadn’t—”

  “There’s blame all over the place,” Marc said, throwing his hands up. “We can wag fingers later. Problems to solve now, yeah?”

  “You are infuriating!” she screamed.

  “I get that a lot.”

  She looked up at the battle raging overhead, then ran to where Martel and Morrigan stood by the hut.

  “We’re on the east flank,” Nicodemus said. “Shore watch.”

  Roland nodded and followed the older Armor into the jungle, tearing through underbrush and wide fronds, startling flocks of birds.

  “How bad is it?” Roland asked.

  “Warsaw reported a dreadnought-sized vessel with support fleet. Not as big as what the Toth sent to Earth, but more than we can handle,” Nicodemus said. “The Cyrgal on the moon are in committee. Everything you see in the air is from Tan Sar bases on the other island and the coast.”

  “Why aren’t they landing on the island?” Roland asked.