Carinae Sector: 02 - Admiral's Fury - Part 2 - Hidden Menace (14 page)

‘Ben, Freya, go to last ditch now for there are thirty missiles heading inwards….’

The Jerecab missiles crossed rapidly to the Tokyo and the Buenos Aries, and Mary noted that the point defences of the two destroyers managed to bring down several of them. Mary could also see that several of the second group of transports still survived and were also attempted to bring down other missiles with their meagre weapons. She counted another eight missiles brought down and considered that both destroyers were being fought superbly. The two destroyers had earlier launched a second and third volley of missiles and the status for each ship told her they had now run out of these weapons. The Tokyo had fired on the flanking frigates and eight of her missiles now survived and were racing towards the targets. The Buenos Aries had managed to launch ten missiles at the armada itself, and Mary watched as they tore through the area of space littered with the wreckage of the first transport group.

The admiral’s attention was brought back to the two destroyers themselves as the remaining Jerecab missiles arrived. A series of large explosions rocked both ships and when the view cleared, Mary could see that both ships were now tumbling wrecks in space. The remaining transports did not last much longer as the concentrated weapons fire of the armada now tore them to pieces. Mary slumped in her chair for a moment in a mixture of shock and grief as Lieutenant Commander Griggs quietly spoke on the bridge.

‘Admiral, we are five minutes from entering the hyper drive point and we should make it after the sacrifice of the Tokyo and the Buenos Aires.’

Mary straightened her tunic and resolutely stood to address the bridge.

‘All ships are to go into hyper space at the allotted time. We will be holding a service for our fallen ship mates in six hours time. Lieutenant Commander, we will go over our preparations to leave these worlds after the loss of our key transport ships. We have held out here for weeks but now it is time to return home.’

A subdued silence feel over the bridge of the Exeter as the fleet prepared to enter hyper space. Two more transports received heavy damage as the rapidly approaching armada opened fire at long range. Mary knew that the bad day that they had experienced could have been a lot worse, as Griggs walked up to her and handed her the requested plans stored on his data tablet.

                                                                     ***

Admiral Baunrus fumed as he considered the loss of several frigates across the centre sections of his armada. He corrected that estimation as he noted that Commander Neanres had not experienced any losses, yet had been instrumental in their partial victory. However he was not done yet in berating his commanders.

‘Now with the exception of Neanres, who I will speak to later, I consider the actions of my remaining commanders to be very poor. If my own commanders displayed half the courage of the two fallen human commanders then we would have been able to engage the main human fleet.’

The admiral had then ordered three deployments each consisting of forty ships to follow the humans into the next system but he was not confident of engaging them again unless his ships arrived right on top of them. He gave them a limit of eight hours to complete the intercept and now turned his attention to Neanres.

‘Commander Neanres, congratulations on your section’s destruction of the two destroyers, though I understand that four of your ships are badly damaged.’

Neanres had waited a few seconds to ensure the admiral was no longer speaking before offering a deep bow and a reply.

‘Thank you admiral, it was the cohesion of the commanders in my section that allowed us our victory. We have not lost any ships but four of them are badly damaged as you say. Admiral I think it is likely the humans will withdraw from this battle after our destruction of their supply ships.’

Admiral Baunrus was still annoyed about the initial breach of discipline and he was in no mood for Neanres’s opinion.

‘Commander, I do not care for what you think, even if you are possibly right. Now you have disobeyed my orders despite your victory, and you will take our damaged ships back to the Dradfer three system and also secure that system. If our reinforcements are present you are to bring them to the human world at all costs.’

Commander Neanres could see the logic of the admiral’s orders, for he had divested himself of a troublesome but capable commander and damaged ships of little use in conquering the human world. He gathering up the damaged ships still capable of moving and much later set a course to leave.

Baunrus watched the damaged frigates slowly move away, even as he gave instructions for several other crippled frigates to be blown up. He did not bother himself in the least with the slowing tumbling wrecks of the two human destroyers. The armada now set a course for the outer areas of the colony zone and the likely human supply bases.

                                                                     ***

Chapter 7

Mary Neilson let her shoulders drop in relief as the first reports of their escape came through. The Jerecab had pursued them with smaller numbers of ships that had arrived some distance from their own position. The admiral could have engaged these frigates easily enough but she was worried about her fleet being cornered again. The destroyers had merely led the supply ships across the star system to avoid being intercepted. After several more hours the Jerecab ships had returned to their entry point and moved off to yet another star system.

Lieutenant Commander Griggs walked over with a report on the state of their supplies, and Mary knew that their recent change of plans would have to be implemented. The admiral locked over the information with forced detachment, before she asked a question.

‘So if we strip down echelon base before we leave then we should have enough supplies to return to Earth?’

Griggs gave a confident answer as he highlighted separate items of importance on the data tablet.

‘Yes, Admiral we need most of our fuel and other reserves at echelon to allow this to occur. I also recommend we setup hidden supplies in case Joel returns in several days time.’

Mary had not forgotten the desperate mission she had sent her best commander on, and she called the main view screen to illustrate a point.

‘Hopefully Joel can disrupt the Jerecab in the Gold system enough to buy us more time. We will retreat and arrange to ambush the Jerecab at possibly two strategic star systems. After that we are back at our handful of colonies and Earth itself is only two hyper drive jumps away afterwards.’

Griggs looked over their plans and made a series of comments of his own.

‘The Jerecab will no doubt attempt to consolidate their conquests and this could buy us the time we need for more vassal races to intervene. Our losses on the expedition amount to five destroyers, and eighteen transports. I estimate we have destroyed over forty Jerecab frigates and scores of their transports.’

Mary looked over the summary of losses with considerable hope, for up until their last battles their mission had been going reasonably well. She looked the star map of the surroundings systems and she offered a direct opinion.

‘I sure hope you are accurate, and the Gold base needs to be damaged for us to tie down the Jerecab. Basically everything needs to also break with us on our retreat home. Fortunately the star systems close to home should confer us an advantage, however we will not be able to defend the colonies.’

The bridge clock chimed an alarm and Mary authorised the change of bridge crew. The officers and crew not on duty were soon packed in the small cargo hold with pallets of food and supplies stacked behind them. The pastor waited until the admiral nodded in approval and the ceremony of remembrance for the fallen began.

                                                                     ***

Freya Paulson rested against the wall of the corridor and tried to ignore the persistent headache she was experiencing. She knew that most of her crew were now dead and that the Buenos Aires would soon freeze into a lifeless hulk of metal. The commander had managed to find several additional crew members after leading the survivors of her bridge crew into the lower sections of her ship.

The survivors had managed to don spacesuits and now carried an assortment of hand weapons. However their suit air supplies would soon run out with no possibility of replacement. She tried not to think of the dismal situation that they were all in with the life support gone and all other key systems either destroyed or offline.

A younger female crew member whimpered in both pain and fear for several moments, and Freya slowly went to her side.

‘Just try to hold on Emma, as the first aide station ahead looks intact and we will try to do something about your broken arm.’

The commander noted with pride that Emma steeled herself and gave a nod to thank her. Freya was slowly moving forward again with her own vision suffering, when a series of sharp clangs resonated through the wreck of the ship. She gestured for all surviving crew members to take defensive positions as she listened again. The surviving engineer, Phil Peters, a large and hard nosed Canadian, slowly spoke into radio.

‘Commander that was something joining onto our standard docking hatch, and I do not think it is one of ours. The design of the hatch was unchanged from the Trader ships to allow future access. There is also no signal or the Morse rescuer code being used.’

Freya knew now that their supposed rescuers were not human and she gave the necessary orders.

‘We are to assume Jerecab marines and we are out of time with our air. We will attempt to clear a path to the cargo hold and the self destruct charges.’

Freya changed the direction of her travel and headed down a jumbled side corridor in the dark with the rest of the survivors slowly trailing her. She was only two levels from the hold when a series of shouts erupted behind her. The commander did not look back, but not increased her pace towards the forward hold access door.

Freya could hear a series of laser shots from her crew as they tried to give her the time she needed to get into the hold. The recent space battle had buckled the access door, and Freya frantically struggled with it, as she realised that she could hear no more weapons fire behind her. The darkness in the ruined destroyer seemed to now reek of threats as she slowly forced open the door.

Freya was suddenly thrown against the door jamb with heavy force and then forced down to the deck. She raised her laser pistol to fire and it was knocked away from her, spraining her right wrist in the process. The commander lashed out in the clumsy suit with her feet, but they were quickly pinned by three of the attackers. A face mask was dislodged, and Freya screamed as she took in the form of the strange aliens attacking her. The commander could see that these unknown aliens were naked apart from tool harnesses and respirators. She knew that their attackers would have had greater mobility than the space suits her crew were forced to wear.

The commander strained against her attackers as they produced laser cutters and proceeded to remove her from her space suit. Freya gagged as her suit was compromised and the fetid stench of the aliens reached her nose. She knew that these aliens must be the Fenshilla for the Traders had briefly mentioned them so long ago. The long limbed aliens were covered in a sloughing grey skin covered with sparse black hair and had long fingered hands tipped with claws. A rat like face, with four tendrils rather than whiskers, and tufted ears completed the image Freya could see. She then mercifully blacked out from oxygen loss, exhaustion and shock.

The Fenshilla platoon leader carefully cut the rest of Freya’s suit from her body and then proceeded to do the same with her clothes. All items were bagged for later analysis and they would search the ship for any items they could use to keep the humans alive. Another Fenshilla slowly wrapped a thermal blanket around the still and naked form of the human before attaching one of their modified oxygen masks. The platoon leader attached a tracking bracelet around Freya’s ankle and issued terse orders to his troops.

‘Careful with this human, for she is their commander and possibly a female of breeding age.’

Freya was carried away to the Fenshilla cruiser as the soldiers now started to search the rest of the ship. The Fenshilla bagged any dead bodies they found for either research or food as they moved through the ship. The platoon leader soon found the first aid stations and methodically looted them of their supplies, as his troops called in with reports of finding the food stores and other items of interest. He was well satisfied with their efforts and knew that the commandant would be as well.

The former commander of the Earth destroyer Buenos Aires, Freya Paulson, woke up in the dimly lit hold of a Fenshilla heavy cruiser. She wrapped a blanket around her body and noted that the hold air stank of Fenshilla. The strange bracelet around her ankle was inspected next and she gave it an experimental twist before evaluating it would not be easily removed. Freya quickly stood and made her way around to the other survivors clustered around one end of the hold. She counted over forty survivors and realised that crew from the Tokyo made up some of the numbers.

Freya knelt down in one corner of the hold and recognised Ben Takayima laying one his back surrounded by some of his crew. Ben was naked like the rest of them and she noted his broken right lower leg. Ben looked at her in surprise and he gave a yelp of pain as he moved. Freya rested a hand on his shoulders and spoke carefully.

‘Try to remain still Ben while I see what I can do for you and the rest of the crew. Hopefully we can organise a splint for that leg as we try and work out what is going on.’

Ben kept still and gave an accurate report that mirrored the capture of Freya and her own crew. She was looking around the bare metal floors and walls of the hold, when a side door opened and several armed Fenshilla walked into the hold. The tall aliens carried electric prods and their presence made the captured humans gag at the stench that came with them. Their jailers dropped a series of boxes along one wall of the hold and Freya recognised both food and medical supplies, including pain killers and splints. Phil Peters limped over and Freya noted the dragon tattooed down the left side of his body. The powerfully built engineer pointed around the upper part of the hold, and she noted the cameras and a large window set high in one end.