The battle was going well.
The six Myrsii warships escorted the enormous Talonian Planet Cracker to a position just beyond the range of the enemy starships. Joining those were the four blockade-runners, the twelve breaklight war cruisers, and the two-dozen squadrons of single pilot berserker A.O.D.s. More than enough forces to drive the enemy back to their respective home worlds and defensive depots.
The strategy was sound.
The blockade-runners came in first. Slow and bulky but heavily armored, they pounded through the front lines disabling or destroying most of the enemy's heavy cruisers.
That gave way for the berserker anti offensive disk fighters to funnel inside the battle and eradicate their epsilon counter parts like a swarm of angry hornets.
Then, the triangular breaklight war cruisers, with their ability to jump to light speed in short calculated bursts, followed. Finishing of whatever the blocked runners hadn't bothered with.
The fleet was being crushed and the Talonian Planet Cracker was not named such for metaphorical purposes. Once the fleet was pushed home the planet cracker would make short work of any planetary defenses.
All in all things were shaping into a sound victory.
Too bad they weren't on our side.
From the forward view port of the jonn'qarra tiny explosions could be seen dotting the black expanse as berserker disks slaughtered her own epsilon squadron.
Many ships could be seen in the distance. Among them, the nearest vessel, the starship REGENT listed pathetically amidst a swirl of debris. Her port side drive engine was gone and a massive section of her forward hull looked as if some monstrous creature had torn it out with its teeth.
There were small, almost imperceptible flashes of light as dozen of escape pods shot free of her lower decks trying desperately not to get caught in the melee of berserker and epsilon counter fire.
Then abruptly, a breaklight war cruiser dropped out of light speed. A brilliant, glowing white and blue with hundreds of ion cannon turrets strewn across its triangular hull, the vessel came about deliberately confronting the REGENT's starboard battery of laser cannons, her only functioning defenses.
A defiant second later it opened fire streaking white/blue fireworks over the REGENT's bow. Her hull rattled and ruptured.
Sections of her hull popped off like flaking paint as her decks lost pressure. Ion pulses from the breaklight cruiser continued pounding the defenseless starship until her sonic/light drive was finally compromised.
She exploded in a burst of fiery yellow blue and sapphire.
Her remaining drive engine spiraled off into space caught in the shock wave of its master's death until it fragmented away liked a withered appendage.
Then just as abruptly as its entrance, the breaklight cruiser vanished on a streak of multi colored lights, only to continue its hit and run maneuver elsewhere in the firefight.
A black cloud then rose, blocking the forward view port.
"Get those fire suppression systems back on line!" yelled admiral Odian over the drone of the emergency claxons.
From his command chair, aboard the starship jonn'qarra's he could barely see through the thick smoke billowing out of the navigations console. Someone pulled a fire snub from the bulkhead and smothered the smoke with a stream of white foam.
Fire suppression was gone which meant the ash would have to cycle through the o2 cylinders before the air cleared.
"And shut of that damn noise!" he yelled and the klaxons responded to his command intuitively.
"Reroute power from the secondary life support and boost the shield gain. Life support back up won't do us much good if were punched full of holes."
From the corner of his eye he saw Ensign Callor on the floor a med team working feverishly over him.
The navigations officer first lt. Kamar was also on the floor, but the explosion from the nav console had blown away his entire workstation, the overhead lighting and most of lt. Kamar's face so the med team moved on to the wounded.
Squinting through the smoke trying to take an appraisal of the rest of his bridge crew he saw second lt. Callinor Onari sitting at the general operations workstation, her beaded pony tail jerking back and forth as she hastily redirected navigations to her console.
Ensign Braxton and the six-foot tall orange skinned endorph, first lt. Cooran, were hunched over a science station struggling to increase shield stability.
First lt. Jana, the weapons office, was no were to be seen. But there was a good chance she was taken out when navigations blew.
The lower deck bridge crew was all but accounted for except for one important officer.
"Commander Roho!"
There was a clatter from somewhere behind the admiral.
"Here sir!" a familiar voice called out from one of the aft bridge stations. Odian let out sigh of relief as his first officer stepped out from behind a sculpted support beam.
"Report" he called back masking his concern for the moment. Sparks shot out of one of the overhead lighting rods and the bridge got a little darker.
Commander Alenda Roho stumbled over a pile of ship debris and made her way to commander Odian's command chair.
Her dark skin had turned an ashy gray and the skirt of her usually neat, white dress uniform was ripped on one side with a large cut trickling crimson down one thigh. The decorative buttons on her dress uniform were popped and her ornately braided hair was strewn about in several directions.
Odian smeared a layer of ash from the dark skin of his brow ridges and mused that he probably didn't look much better than his first officer.
"Decks seventeen through nineteen have lost emergency gravity," she reported "And the fire suppression systems on deck twelve are irreparable."
Odian flinched at her report. The two gleaming, black orbs that passed for his first officer's eyeballs were imperceptibly narrowed by her squared brow ridges.
An expression that articulated a world of emotion without conveying the wrong signals to an already battle weary, and novice, bridge crew. He knew she had just given him the good news.
Leaning in she half whispered, "The starboard and port side weapons arrays are gone. All we've got left are a few shots from the aft batteries and a couple of seeker missiles we didn't need for that last blockade-runner."
"Admiral!" lt. Onari interrupted. "The REGENT's epsilon squadron and escape pods are requesting permission to board, sir."
"Tell them permission granted, lieutenant." mildly annoyed he turned back to the commander who was now accessing the console on the arm of his command chair. She had keyed in her access codes and had only now confirmed what her own combat experience had already taught her.
"Admiral," Roho said in a resigned tone completely uncharacteristic of his first officer. "Our shield strength is at fifty percent with the power transfer, but their weakening with every vessel we take on. Another direct hit and I estimate a full burn of the shields within the tensec."
Odian didn't like were she was going with this.
"Are you suggesting we turn tail now? Give the enemy a panoramic view of backsides and hope they don't see the crosshairs tattooed on our Asses?
Roho didn't take offence to his outburst. She shared his frustration but the odds had stacked surprisingly against them.
"Odian, we have seriously underestimated the capabilities of our adversary. We have no weapons, no life support back up, and our best weapons engineer is in medical right now having two of his tentacles amputated."
She reached out to his sense of duty as best she could without seriously offending him. But coddling was not something the admiral was fond of and neither was denial.
"Sir, she added. Its thirty sintecs from home base and we have virtually no working defenses. Were fortunate to still have a function stellar drive and most of the fleet is in worse shape than we are. Not to mention"¦"
"Not to mention the six Myrsii warships that just entered scanning range" he interrupted. "Point taken, commander. We've played "˜gods and devils' with our children for to long. Its time to take the fleet home."
The mention of the Zakarian childhood game left images of long forgotten strategies and implementations.
"Lt Onari," he began to order, thinking about how easily the "˜devils' in this game had become the "˜gods'. "Open a channel to the fleet. Tell them to recall all fighters and set a course for-"
It was just then the "˜devils' sent the ship jolting hard to port side.
The jolt sent Odian rolling out of his chair and commander Roho careening back into a pile of ship's debris. Emergency claxons blared back into existence and every workstation went into full alert. A breaklight cruiser had dropped out of light speed four thousand kilometers off their starboard bow.
The jonn'qarra continued to rock and jolt as multiple ion cannons kept strafing her outer hull. The blood red back up lights snapped on and Odian felt a momentary surge of weightlessness as the artificial gravity cut out and the emergency grav generators kicked in.
The ship roiled again and the outer hull shrieked as the enemy cruiser out maneuvered lt. Onari's evasive tactics.
Someone screamed from one of the aft bridge stations and a deafening explosion sent a young ensign flying backwards over the upper deck guardrail and slamming hard into the lower deck at foot of Odian's command chair.
Odian heard the unbelievable sound his neck made when he hit the deck. Bracing himself on the back of lt. Balice's chair he tried to get a good look at the tactical display to the right of the forward view port in hopes of seeking out aid. But every ship was either to far away or engaged in its own personal drama to be of any kind of assistance. And the jonn'qarra's epsilon squadron had already returned to their hanger bays.
Again the ship rocked.
"Shield strength at seventeen percent!" lt. Cooran yelled, her orange hand gripping a support beam. "I'm going to try and remodulate-" another jolt cut her off.
Sparks and cinders shot out of the port side air duct and Odian wagered that life support wouldn't last long, either.
"I've had enough of this!" he said his already baritone voice dropping another octave. Lt. Onari" pointing at her as rose from the floor. " "˜Devil's Roll' on my mark!"
The bridge crew stiffened visibly, knowing what the admiral had in mind. The usually ivory colored horns down the center of lt. Onari's forehead fogged to a sickly brown as she reluctantly keyed in the maneuver.
Devil's Roll was a dangerous maneuver under the best of circumstances in open space. But in the middle of a battle zone? But if anyone had any objections they weren't vocal. At this point, what did it matter now?
"Ready"¦NOW!" Odian commanded.
Onari tapped the engage sensor with one finger and the shipped jumped to light speed.
The move was reckless, uncalculated, and the last thing the breaklight cruiser's captain had expected.
Trying quickly to calculate the jonn'qarra's course and speed the cruiser leapt into its own light speed run hoping to overtake the smaller vessel.
That was its first mistake.
Three seconds later the jonn'qarra came to a full stop. As per orders Onari fired the lower starboard thrusters, and opened all the hangar bay doors on the upper port side. The escaping pressure combined with the maneuvering thrusters sent the jonn'qarra into a belly roll hard to port. And in that same instant fired the remaining seeker missiles, one starboard and one aft.
The breaklight cruiser spearheaded through a cloud of gasses left by the jonn'qarra's weapons array and shot passed her, narrowly missing her port side drive engines. Coming to a stop too far out of their ion cannons range and not far enough to make another jump to light speed, the cruiser forced itself about glided towards the jonn'qarra's at a casual four hundred k.p.h.
The crew watched out the forward view port as the cruiser grew ominously large. The triangular dimensions on its forward hull gave it an evil scowl even in this inverted position.
"The cruiser will be in weapons range in approximately six seconds" said a replacement officer who had taken charged of what was left of the weapons station.
"Not yet," Odian ordered. The cruiser continued to close the distance between the two ships, her bright blue lights flooding the bridge and turning everything purple.
"Not"”yet," he repeated, slowly this time watching the two blips on the tactical display very closely.
That's when a seeker missile appeared off the cruisers starboard bow.
The breaklight cruiser immediately opened fire, its multiple ion cannons trying desperately to hit the seeker missile dead on and still close in on the jonn'qarra's.
The missile bobbed and weaved as white/blue burst of light shot past it.
Now well within weapons range of the jonn'qarra's, the cruiser continued its volley at the missile, knowing it would take several direct hits to crack its almost impenetrable shielding.
Two bursts of white/blue bit the missile dead on and for a tensec Odian thought they might get off easy, but a lucky shot from one of the lower ion cannons found the seeker's detonation point.
It exploded in a huge burst of crystal white energy.
The impact wave rocked the cruiser and the jonn'qarra's who were now almost kissing in inverted positions.
After that, the breaklight cruiser's ion turrets came about locking dead center on the jonn'qarra's command center; the bridge. A heartbeat and an eternity and Odian finally ordered: " All thrusters! NOW!!"
The jonn'qarra's lower deck thrusters simultaneously fired dropping her downward relative to the breaklight cruiser's position and a split second out of the cruiser's line of fire.
And then, emerging from the gaseous swirl of coolant already disturbed by the passing breaklight cruiser, came the second seeker missile.
Virtually skidding of the jonn'qarra's underbelly the missile made a beeline for the breaklight cruiser.
The ion cannons opened fire hoping for a repeat performance of the last missile, but two bursts were all it managed to get off. With a downward sweep the missile avoided both shots and plunged itself into the cruiser's underbelly. Not detonating on impact the missile sunk about a halfway into the cruiser's decks. Once centralized, the missile's onboard a.i. would seek out the vessels critical systems, her sonic/light drive and then"¦
There was a perceptible rumble within the cruiser. A shock wave was working its way out ward consuming deck upon deck as the cruiser was literally gutted.
"Get us out of here Onari." Odian said.
Momentarily awed, Onari snapped to attention reminded by Odian's tone what happens when a breaklight cruiser blows apart.
The jonn'qarra did a scissors roll as the cruiser's colors began to change colors from blue to a fire yellow.
The jonn'qarra's sub light engines fired and carried her out of range just as the breaklight cruiser finally lived up to its name.
The mid-section exploded. Two more explosions followed and the heavily protected armor around the drive engines melted down.
Another heartbeat and she blew.
The cruiser splintered like the shards of a colossal chandelier followed by a twinkling concerto of raining broken glass.
A tensec later and the breaklight cruiser was gone.
Odian, who was very nearly on the floor again, stood up to congratulate his bridge crew. But any feelings of pride or triumph would have to wait.
Ensign Callor was gone his injuries too severe to have been treated properly during a fire -fight.
The young ensign's, whose name Odian had not yet learned, broken body lied twisted at the base of his command chair.
And ensign Braxton, cradled in the long arms of the tall endorph, lied motionless. His once handsome features now nothing more than grotesque mask of seared flesh.
Lt. Cooran possessed no nasal passages with which to sniffle, but a milky white liquid streamed out of her almond shaped eyes and spattered on the silver medallion of Brixton's red dress uniform. She was silent and gently rocking her fallen comrade as if rocking a small baby.
Odian flashed back to all the times he had seen Cooran and Braxton together; at food dispersal and at the few social gatherings he had attended since he had taken command. But he hadn't made the connection until this moment.
This moment"¦
These young men and women, some of them just out of the academy, there was no need for them to have died"¦not like this.
How had they so grossly underestimated their enemy?
There was a garbled moan from somewhere behind him.
"Commander!" he suddenly realized.
Moving past the fallen ensign and around a now slightly lopsided command chair Odian moved towards the last place he had seen Alenda Roho standing. Stepping over a fallen lighting rod Odian looked to find the commander sprawled rather ingloriously in a pile of debris and wiring.
Some broken glass had imbedded itself into her jacket and there were a few more cuts and abrasions on her legs and face. Her left brow ridge was deeply cut.
"Are you alright commander?" he asked reaching out to her.
She grimaced as she took it and struggled to get up out of the debris with as much grace as possible. Something not easily done in that cumbersome dress uniform but somehow she managed.
"I'm"¦I'm fine. With maybe the exception of some dignity." She said uncertainly.
"I was about to tell something about the inertial stabilizers but"¦um"¦"
Her eyes went dreamy and she began to glare around as if trying to comprehend where she was. She moaned bringing her hand to the gash on her forehead while slowly loosing her balance. Odian caught her and walked her to his command chair.
"Easy commander. That blow to head looks severe. Medic!" a med technician was treating another tech for injuries when the ladder waved him on. When in combat it was important (not to mention protocol) for the command staff's injuries to take priority.
The med tech squatted down in front of Roho and Odian finally released her hand. When tech began scanning her with a portable bio scanner and Odian turned to face the navigation's officer.
"Onari set a course for defense depot one. Stellar speed nine. And get us away from any more breaklight cruisers.
He then turned to the communications officer.
"Lt. Balice."
Balice spun around in her chair with enough force for a double axle. Her lip was bleeding which probably meant she had slammed face first into the communications console.
"Lieutenant?" Odian asked warily.
"Sir? Y-yes sir." She shook her head and the comprehension seemed to return tot the two silver pupils in each eye.
"Just a little shaken admiral. That's all" she visibly forced herself to focus but the usually echoic metallic sound so indicative of an Alamore's voice sounded fragile, uncertain.
Odian nodded but shelved his concerns for the moment.
"Open a general transmission to the fleet." He ordered, "Security encryption DELTA-5."
"Aye sir" Balice blinked and tried not to let her tension show.
Always trying to match the grace of commander Roho she some how never managed it. But her intense will and dedication to her duties, a concept alien to most Alamore females made her a good officer. Her father would be proud of her Odian thought. He was proud of her. He wondered if her or her father would live long enough to appreciate it.
She keyed in the proper codes for an encrypted message. "Go ahead sir."
"This is admiral Odian to all fleet commanders," he spoke into the air. "Recall all epsilon fighters and emergency work crews to your hanger bays. Take on as many of the homeless as you can. Retreat to defense base one and we'll make our stand with guardian commandoes.
"Do not, I repeat do not engage the fleet. We'll need all the ships we can spare for a defense perimeter around the Zakarian home world. Acknowledge."
Odian paused as the remaining starship commanders lit up Balice's com board. "All ships acknowledge admiral."
Odian gave Roho a sideways glance as the med tech ran the replaclone over her thigh.
"Open a secure channel to the elo." He said to Balice.
Odian remembered the slow going almost nonexistent talks with the elo, the warrior like race that very nearly destroyed the Zakarian people fifteen years earlier. Blinded by their mutual hatred for one another the elo had peace talks had again collapsed one month ago, spelling certain war for Zakara and any world that served under the intergalactic banner of Interstar.
Now almost one month to the day negotiations crumbled, the elo's most renowned battle cruisers were falling side by side with a people they had once sworn to destroy.
"Channels open sir" Balice said.
"This is fleet admiral Enonan Odian to any remain elo vessels." He paused for a moment "Your welcome to make a stand with us Zakara." The words didn't quite fit in his mouth. Elo protecting Zakara? There was a word for that in the elo language. Not a very nice word at that.
"If not," he continued remembering the elo dogma. "Ro'fenek elo/ do zhenden!" (Which, when roughly translated means: Die with honor warriors of the night skies or some such nonsense.)
"End transmission."
There was a bleep as the channel was closed and what seemed like an eternity of silence.
Moving toward the general operations workstation Odian was sure what the response would be. At least, he thought, I offered the invitation.
When he reached ops lt. Onari was staring at Cooran who was still cradling the fallen ensign in her arms. The endorph were known for their deep emotional attachments and Odian wondered if she would ever be the same again.
"Lieutenant?" he said to Onari catching her by surprise. She snapped a double take back and forth at Cooran and the admiral and suppressed an already streaming well if tears.
"I need a report lieutenant," he said with out trying to make things worse for her than they already were. He disliked working with trainees but was somehow deft at it at the same time.
"Um" Onari sniffled " aye sir." She glanced back at the dazed commander Roho suddenly realizing that she was second in command for the time being.
Tapping her console she keyed up the damage report.
"We've lost artificial gravity on decks seven through nine now." She reported.
"Weapons control says we've got a coolant leak on the aft laser array so they don't recommend firing. Shields are down to twelve percent"¦" she stiffened a little realizing they were still somewhat of a sitting duck for another breaklight cruiser.
"Environmental is still floating around on decks seventeen trying to recalibrate the O2 cylinders"¦" she paused as a final report scrolled across her visual display.
"Casualty report is coming in sir." Another pause.
"Forty nine dead. Seventy-six injured.
Odian shot his eyes from on end of the bridge to the other. It had been made painfully obvious to him yet again. The bodies strewn across the bridge on both the upper and lower decks.
Lives that were his responsibility.
Gone.
Dust in the field of combat.
Words of condolence were not enough. Not to justify this"¦this travesty.
His gaze caught that of commander Roho's and they locked in on each other for a time. Maybe she felt the unspoken outrage he felt at how horribly they had overestimated their defenses.
Or perhaps she was wondering why they had equally underestimated their enemy's strength.
Maybe she just wondered if they were going to love through any of it.
She blinked her large tamarite eyes at Odian and held his gaze for a few seconds more, probably for a bit longer than what would have been considered appropriate bridge protocol. But he got the message.
And right now all that mattered was that they were alive and going home.
He jolted forward as did everyone on the bridge.
But it wasn't weapons fire this time but more like the inertial shuffle one might experience on a starship being forced out of light seed.
Lt. Cooran felt the surge forward and reluctantly laid her fallen lover on the floor to run a scan from her science station.
Some computer gibberish scrolled by on her view screen as did a series of mathematical equations. She inhaled sharply and both her hearts froze.
"Admiral we've just been pulled out of light speed by a massive graviton field!"
Odian didn't move.
"Graviton field? Oh god, the Myrsii warships."
The escort warships of the planet were something of legend to those who had not seen a great deal of combat. Stories of r.u.n.aways and renegade cyborgs forming an elite cadre' of vessel were prominent folklore amidst a plethora off tall tales and legends.
To those who had seen them, and lived, they were demon ships straight out of hell.
Odian had seen one.
Once.
He swore he would never allow any crew of his to face one down again.
"Reroute all remaining power to the shields!! I mean everything!! Life support, emergency batteries, waste reclamation!! I don't care what it is, if its got power take it off line and redirect it to the shields!! I want double the gain and want it NOW!!"
His particular baritone voice had a frightening effect on most species nervous systems when it got loud and he was frightening his crew.
Good, he thought, they had better be frightened.
How the calis did they catch up to us so quickly?"
"Admiral!" Cooran yelled, but didn't need to finish her sentence.
Out the port side view port it slithered past their bow. Writhing like a giant serpent in space, its multi sectional hull allowed it to undulate as it came about bringing its diamond shaped head to the fore.
Its ebony snake like hull was nearly a kilometer in length with luminous blood red lines that streamlined its exterior. The lines converged at the head or forward hull giving it the appearance of angry serpent.
"Balice!!" Odian yelled. "Send a distress call to the VISIONARY and the PARADOX. Tell them we need emergency assistance--"
It was the last order he was able to give.
A streak of light as brilliant as its streaming lines spewed out of the Myrsii warships mouth making short work of the jonn'qarra's dwindling shields.
A deep thunder echoed through the bridge and the ship shook more violently than it had for any ship it had so far encountered and no one was left sitting or standing.
Odian slammed hard into the general ops station and then onto Onari who then both hit the floor. Odian heard something in his ribcage go crack as he and Onari hit the deck plates.
Onari's blunt horns had broken two of his ribs.
The Myrsii fires again, a continuous red shaft of light that cut into the jonn'qarra's hull and sliced the starboard drive engine off with ridiculous ease.
The snake twisted and turned as it took seeming delight in the carnage. The warship fired again slicing into the jonn'qarra's mid section with the ease of a knife through a roast, exposing deck upon deck into the vacuum of space.
No one onboard the jonn'qarra heard the order to abandon ship.
It wasn't given.
Fires raged through out the vessel's two halves, as did the screams and cries and prayers of a dozen different species.
Lights dimmed and things exploded and things crashed and if Odian could have given the order he would have. But his body was numb save for the pain burning up his right side.
He could see nothing through an enormous cloud of thick smoke except for the vague glow of computer consoles and every time he tried to inhale he half choked to death on ash and ozone.
He tried to stand and paid the price for it every time by hitting the deck hard.
Soon he felt the dizzying effect associated with weightlessness as emergency gravity failed.
He knew life support was probably gone too.
His body tumbled aimlessly throughout the bridge bumping into unseen wreckage and unidentifiable bodies
One reached out to him but his or her hand slipped from his grasp.
Something cold and wet spattered against his face.
Was any of his crew left alive?
Roho?
Balice?
Onari?
Odian closed his eyes inhaling as deeply as he could manage and silently cursed his enemy.
The enemy responsible for"¦
For all of this.
And awed at the fact that his enemy was only one man.
Zaldorean!
Many regrets flashed through his mind at that moment competing for greatness. The blackness at the fringes of his consciousness began to consume him.
A gasp, a curious tingling sensation, a horizon of light"¦
And then he died.
