Out of the Ashes (Rise of the Empire Book 3) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty Six

Commander Vladimir Domnin stood at a top of a building overlooking the St. Petersburg Ra’a’zani base. The people around the base have already been evacuated. And Vladimir and his people waited for the signal before they started their assault. His men were already positioned in the darkness, unseen waiting for his command. Then Vladimir’s comm chirped, and he knew that the time had come.

“Go, go, go!” Vladimir said over the comm grid of his suit. Every member of his assault team heard the message and they began the assault. Vladimir dropped from the roof of the four floor building, as his feet hit the pavement it cracked. The suit absorbed all the force of the drop. The suits he and his team wore were made during the war by Concordis, for special ops teams. Powered suits allowed them to move faster, hit harder, and survive things that would otherwise kill them.

His twenty man team moved quickly towards the Ra’a’zani main entrance, their suits stealth mode engaged. There were supposed to be forty Ra’a’zani inside, plus a dozen or so thralls. The Taskmaster of this base didn’t like slaves, so most humans were not allowed inside. Instead they remained outside the base, until Ra’a’zani needed something. That’s why they couldn’t destroy the base by planting bombs.

Vladimir reached the base entrance. A standard Ra’a’zani checkpoint with two Ra’a’zani standing guard. The two were engaged in conversation. They didn’t even notice when two plasma blasts fired from Vladimir’s sides and burned their heads off. His people kept moving going inside. The Ra’a’zani scanner would soon detect their movement, but they wouldn’t be seen by the naked eye. The confusion will add to their advantage. As soon as they entered the base itself, they split off into teams of two. They started moving through the base killing everything in their way. The Ra’a’zani knew that they were under attack, the human weapons were as invisible as the suits, but their fire was not.

Vladimir entered a room, and saw there Ra’a’zani, they were in the process of putting on their battle armor. But sadly for them, Vladimir decided to not let them finish. He raised his SH-7 plasma rifle and fired at the closest Ra’a’zani. The plasma bolt burning through his back. Vladimir’s team member killed another one as he tried to turn. And Vladimir put two quick bolts into the third one as he tried to charge their positions.

Communicating through their suits and implants, the entire assault team moved efficiently and quickly through the base. Within another twenty minutes, there was no Ra’a’zani left alive.

***

Commander Anya Lane was not having a good day. Her team began their assault on the Ra’a’zani base in the Sydney mega-zone more than ten minutes ago, and they were still pinned down in the base’s lobby. Somehow the Ra’a’zani were ready for them. They had been waiting for Anya and her people in their battle armor. Whether her team was betrayed minutes before the attack, or somehow the Ra’a’zani managed to detect them, didn’t matter now. The fight was on. She had already lost three of her men. And knew that she would lose a lot more before the night was over.

Rising her weapon over the cover, she used her implant’s interface - that connected to her plasma rifles small camera - to aim and fire without being exposed. The Ra’a’zani had trouble taking cover because of their size, but their armor more than compensated enough.

She fired four shots in a quick succession, hitting one Ra’a’zani three times in the torso. The Ra’a’zani was too slow to move, and the first two shots weekend its armor enough for the third to penetrate and kill him. Anya lowered her weapon, checking on her imp the heating level of her rifles power cell. She had maybe another seven shots, before she needed to dispose of the cell. She had two more reserve cells. But she knew that if they don’t manage to break the stalemate soon, it wouldn’t be enough.

***

Taskmaster Rag’r’an, commander of the Ra’a’zani base in what the humans called Sydney mega-zone, stood in his battle armor in the middle of his base’s main command center. He watched on the terminals as humans pushed through the entrance hall, and slowly progressed into the base. Both sides were losing people, but for every one human that fell, three of his people fell as well. Rag’r’an shook with rage, this was the first time in the history of the Ra’a’zani race that a slave race dared to rebel after its been conquered.

The humans attack began with the sabotage of Rag’r’an’s comm system. His people were lucky that they noticed it early enough, and that Rag’r’an put the base on alert. Otherwise the humans would have killed them all already. He saw the power of their weapons first hand, as the scorch mark on his shoulder attested to.

“How long before we regain communications?” Rag’r’an asked.

“Soon Taskmaster.” His subordinate answered.

Rag’r’an growled in his battle armor. Once he managed to contact the Dakar, the humans would pay dearly for every Ra’a’zani life lost.

***

Anya watched as her people slowly gained ground. They were pushing the Ra’a’zani back. Soon they would reach their main room. Plasma bolts flew from the human side, while some kind of other energy weapons fire flew from the Ra’a’zani. They had never managed to get their hands on Ra’a’zani functional weapon. And they didn’t know what kind of energy it fired, but they knew that their armor could withstand a few hits. She got a message on her imp from the command. They had reinforcements incoming.

“Commander! The Ra’a’zani are trying to get their comms back up!” Anya heard over her imp. Immediately she opened a channel to everyone under her command.

“Pull back! We got heavies incoming!”

***

“The humans are nearly through Taskmaster!” Someone yelled out.

“Stall them!” Ra’g’ran growled out. He turned to the Ra’a’zani working on the comms.

“Hurry!” He said.

“I’m almost done Taskmaster. Rerouting the power source, and… There!”

“Contact the headquarters immediately!” Ra’g’ran ordered.

“There is no response Taskmaster!”

Ra’g’ran looked in disbelief, the humans couldn’t have attacked the headquarters as well.

“Try the other bases. Start with the closest first.”

“There is no response from anyone. All the bases on the planet have gone silent Taskmaster!”

Rag’r’an couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Access the grid, figure out what happened.” Ra’g’ran ordered. The grid was separate from their comm systems.

“There is no mention of anything wrong Taskmaster. Wait… it looks like ships entered the system and the Blood Claw moved to meet with them.” Ra’g’ran felt a shiver, this couldn’t be coincidence.

“Send the message to the Blood Claw. Tell them that all the bases on the planet are under attack!” Ra’g’ran ordered. Then another Ra’a’zani in battle armor walked over to him.

“The humans are retreating!” He said.

Ra’g’ran engaged his hand cannon, and started towards the action. He wouldn’t let the humans get away without first making them pay in blood.

***

Sergeant Nathan Bell sat in the driver’s seat of the League Ravager Mk3 class tank. Behind him, on their own posts were his best friends, Donald Hall and Chloe Grant. Nathan’s tank was a part of the four tank squad, moving into position to attack a Ra’a’zani base. They couldn’t have approached the base before, fearing that the Ra’a’zani sensors would detect them before they managed to disable them. But now the Ra’a’zani defenses were down, his people had retreated, and his job was to level it to the ground. Their squad got in position on the hill overlooking the Ra’a’zani base. Their large 160mm caliber guns swiveled and locked on their target. A moment later their bombardment began. The large explosive rounds rained fire on the defenseless Ra’a’zani base. Within minutes the base crumbled in fire and smoke.

After the dust settled, two ten man teams moved in on foot, making sure that there were no survivors.

***

The first thing Aileen saw when she opened her eyes was the orange sky. For a moment she thought that it was dawn and moved to get up, she had things to do. But then she remembered. She realized that she was in a vehicle of some kind, bundled up in the back seat with someone sitting next to her. Through the vehicle’s window she saw that it wasn’t dawn, the orange color was from the flames rising up in the distance. Slowly Aileen rose up, the person sitting next to her noticed and turned to her.

“Are you alright child? You hit your head pretty hard.” The Father asked.

“What have you done?” Aileen asked weakly. “They’ll kill us all for this.”

“No child. The time when Ra’a’zani ruled over the Earth has come to an end. By this time tomorrow we will be free.”

Aileen shook her head. “You can’t fight them. They have ships, they’ll start bombing us any moment now.” She said defeated.

“We have ships as well. There is so much that you don’t know about your own kind. This is exactly why they managed to conquer us. If more of us remembered the past, the things would have been different.” The Father said sadly, shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about their ship, it is being taken care of.”

Aileen refused to believe it. She knew what Ra’a’zani were capable of. They would never allow this to go unpunished. She kept her mouth shut, looking out the window at the cloud of orange smoke out in the distance. The Ra’a’zani base had been her home, and now it was gone. She didn’t know how to feel about that.

A few minutes later they came to a stop. The Father motioned for her to get out, and he exited the vehicle on his side. Aileen followed on her side. The man in the armored suit exited and shook the Father’s hand.

“I’ll be seeing you around Father.”

“God is with you son.” The Father said. Aileen thought about his words, and then something clicked in her mind. The Father was a priest. She had heard about them long ago, people that believed in a God, and dedicated their lives to him.

The man in the armored suit, laughed, said his goodbyes and went back to his vehicle, driving away in the direction they came from. The Father motioned for Aileen to follow, and not knowing what else to do, she did. They went around a corner of a building and were met with droves of people. Aileen realized that  this was where the people from the streets went to. She looked around as they passed. Some people thanked the Father, others looked happy, talking about being free. But most were silent, looking like they didn’t care.

“Here child.” The Father said as they reached a building. “Go inside, you will find cots. Rest for a bit. I’ll come check up on you later.” With that he left her, while he went back among the crowd. Not knowing what else to do, Aileen did as she was told.

***

Olympus Explorer Ship Start Gazer moved above the docking area of one of the Ra’a’zani mining facilities. The Ra’a’zani had pulled back there, to hide from the human forces that had attacked them from within. Now Star Gazer rolled, bringing its four small double railgun turrets to bear on target. Jacob’s men on this site had already closed all airlocks. And isolated the area humans were in from the ones where Ra’a’zani were. The Star Gazer opened fire. The small 90mm rounds ripping through the docks hull depressurizing it and killing every Ra’a’zani inside.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Vit’r’an saw the human formation start to break apart, their ships slowing down and shifting. They weren’t turning away from the Blood Claw, they were arranging to meet his ship. Vit’r’an applauded the humans for their bravery, he knew some Ra’a’zani that would have turned and ran if they were faced with the same. He watched as the top of the human formation moved even further away from the three bigger ships in the middle, and spread out. The lower part of their formation doing the same. He knew what they were trying to do, as his ship passed the middle of their formation, the bottom would move behind them while the top tried to trap him from the above. He recognized the skill of the human commander. But sadly it would do her no good. Their ships couldn’t stand up to his. The human ships were in range of his weapons for a while now. But still he waited, just a bit more and he would open fire. The humans held their fire as well. That worried him, they should be firing their weapons at him, trying to get through. But they didn’t. That told him that they planed something as well.

Then Vit’r’an decided that they were close enough.

“Lock the Larsha’ka on the human ships one through three!” Vit’r’an ordered.
Now you will see how truly outmatched you are.

***

On the holo the Ra’a’zani ship drew closer and closer. Johanna kept her weapons fire silent, their lasers were ineffective and the Ra’a’zani had a way of detonating their missiles. She placed all her hopes on one last move. Then the Monarch’s scans detected a massive buildup of energy from the Ra’a’zani ship. Then the Ra’a’zani ship opened fire.

***

The Ra’a’zani warship held three Larsha’ka cannons. The cannons turned and locked on the human three heavy cruisers. Then the faint green light started emanating from the inside of the turret barrels. The light grew in intensity for a few seconds, and then all three turrets released their Larsha’ka energy. Three bolts of bright green-white energy exited the turrets, moving much faster than the human missiles. But still slower than the speed of light. The human ships point defense was unable to lock on the bolts, and unopposed they reached the human ships. The first human ship received the energy bolt on its forward section, the bolt “ate” through their hull, mangling and twisting the hull before it expanded all of its energy. The second human ship got hit directly in the middle of its top section. The energy ate through the hull and reached the ship’s weapon power grid. Once the Ra’a’zani weapons fire came in contact with the grid it released the remainder of its energy overloading the power grid. The resulting backlash caused a series of secondary explosions that blew the ship apart. The last human ship was lucky, it managed to roll and showed its bottom side, where its hull was the thickest. The energy bolt struck the hull but didn’t penetrate the hull, leaving only a huge scorch/burn like mark on the heavy cruisers hull.

***

Stunned Johanna watched as Ra’a’zani fire mangled her ships. The heavy cruiser Unity had blown up, the heavy cruiser Sword had sustained heavy damage, its forward section weapons were offline and the Ship Master Talis reported that they were experiencing constant power fluctuations in their power grid. The heavy cruiser Tempest on the other hand got off lightly, they got hit on the part of the ship where their hull was thickest, and sustained only light damage. But another hit like that and they could be in trouble. Johanna knew that the only ships in her fleet that could stand up to that weapon were her battleships and the Monarch. She changed her plan, sending her middle line in, while pulling the others back. A few more minutes and she would unleash the full might of the Monarch’s turrets and railguns on the Ra’a’zani ship.

***

Disappointed, Vit’r’an looked at the damage his weapons had inflicted. He had intended to destroy all of them with a single shot. But the human ships proved more resilient.

“What happened? The Larsha’ka were supposed to destroy their ships.” Vit’r’an said, the Larsha’ka was not the most powerful weapon the Ra’a’zani possessed, but it was the base of all of their ships, and the main weapon of the Blood Claw.

“Now that we have damaged their hull, we have better scans of their ships. It looks like their hull is made out of high density metal alloys. They have a tremendous mass, Dakar. The Larsha’ka expended most of its energy just to get through so much mass.” A Taskmaster on the sensor post said.

Vit’r’an growled again. The Larsha’ka could burn through anything, provided it had enough energy. If it needed to expand so much of its power just to get through the human hull, the Blood Claw will need to fire follow up shots for it to be effective. But they did destroy one and crippled another of their ships. That meant that some areas of their ships had less defenses than others. The terminal now showed the human middle line moving forward, their damaged ships moving behind. Looks like the humans figured out what the Larsha’ka did. If their bigger ships had thicker hull, then it would take more than a single shot to damage them enough to destroy them. Then the human middle line split again, their biggest ship going up above the Blood Claw, while the two smaller ones going below. They planned to get him between them. A good plan, but one that won’t work as their weapons were ineffective against his ship.

“Target the ships four through six, fire when ready.” Vit’r’an said.

***

Andros rolled the Monarch, bringing its top side to bear against the Ra’a’zani ship. All of their railguns, and massive turrets were trained on the Ra’a’zani ship. The battleships Claymore and Sovereign were under the Ra’a’zani ship, their trajectories and weapons pointed in a way that made sure that any missed shots wouldn’t hit the Monarch, or the Monarch’s them. The light cruisers were coming in behind the Monarch, even further above. The heavy cruisers Tempest and Sword waited in front of the Ra’a’zani ship.

Then Andros saw the Ra’a’zani ship open fire, just as the order came through.

“Fire!” Andros said, and watched as the space filled with fast moving metal objects.

***

“Firing!” Vit’r’an’s subordinate said. And all five Larsha’ka cannons on the top of the Blood Claw fired on the biggest human ship, while the four on the bottom fired two shots on the each human ship below. Vit’r’an followed his Larsha’ka bolts, just as alarms started beeping across the bridge.

“Incoming weapons fire! It looks like Pasha’ka, thousands of them!”

“Get their frequencies!” Vit’r’an yelled out, if they were the same ones that could multiply this could be bad.

“The Srasah’uk can’t get a lock!” Someone yelled out. Vit’r’an looked at the incoming fire, realization coming to his mind. His eyes widened. “Evasive Maneuvering!” He yelled out. But he knew that it was too late.

***

Out in space, the Ra’a’zani Larsha’ka and the human weapons fire encountered each other. A few of the humans metal shells impacted with the Larsha’ka, and those that did were devoured by it, reducing the Larsha’ka energy by a small amount. Then they passed, the Larsha’ka bolts hit their targets spot on. Five Larsha’ka bolts hit the Monarch, three hit the Citadel, and two impacted in the amidship. The top of the ship’s hull was bathed in green-white energy that swallowed anything it came in contact with, several turrets disappeared as they were consumed. The Larsha’ka savaged the Monarch’s hull, but the dreadnought ships had been created to deal out as much punishment as they got. The damage was minor.

The two battleships each got hit by two Larsha’ka, the Claymore shrugged of the hits, losing only a couple of turrets. The Sovereign on the other hand wasn’t so lucky. One shot hit it amidship doing minor damage. The other one hit close to the ship’s drives, the Larsha’ka ate through the hull and reached a power conduit. The last part of the ship exploded, sending the Sovereign into a spin, it’s auxiliary maneuvering drives firing to try and stabilize it.

The Ra’a’zani ship noticed the danger of the human attack almost too late. In the split seconds that its commander realized the danger, the Ra’a’zani ship fired all of its drives in one big burst of power, moving ever so slightly out of the way. That moment was enough to save them from most of the onslaught, but not all. The smaller 150mm explosive shells fired from the human ships railguns bombarded the Ra’a’zani ship creating craters on its surface. But it was their main weapons, the massive 700mm shells fired from their turrets that inflicted the most damage. The Ra’a’zani hull was strong, but the pure destructive power of the human weapons proved sufficient to devastate their hull. One 700mm shell dropped right on top of the Ra’a’zani Larsha’ka turret, breaking it apart and penetrating inside the ship, causing an enormous explosion that left a seven meter wide crater on the ship’s hull.

And then three of the 700mm shells followed by dozens of 150mm explosive ones, hit the Ra’a’zani ships close to its drives. The effect was immediate, the hull material of the Ra’a’zani ship shattered as the shells destructive power hit them. A part of their drives exploded, but the Ra’a’zani ship was made with the best materials their kind was capable of making, most of the explosion was absorbed or deflected off the most important sections of the ship.

***

Vit’r’an felt his ship shake around him, the clear sign that the internal dampeners were damaged. He wasn’t worried, his ship had many redundancies. The dampeners were probably the most important part of a space ship. His terminal showed the damage the Blood Claw was receiving. Hull breaches, loss of hull integrity, and then he heard an explosion. The light on his bridge dimmed, the lights and computers flickering, until a moment later they came back strong. Vit’r’an glanced at his terminal. He saw the damage to his ship’s drives. Their maneuvering capability had dropped to 30%.

Vit’r’an felt his blood boil in rage. He knew what the human weapons were. Mass drivers, weapons that his people used long ago. He had heard of the devastation that those weapons could do to a ship that was foolish enough to stand in their way. And now he had experienced it firsthand. His ship’s hull was savaged, the damage wasn’t critical, surface damage only. But the integrity of their plates had dropped, they lost a Larsha’ka cannon, and the only reason for his drives still operating was that their builders built them with battle in mind, and constructed them compartmentalized. His people had stopped using mass drivers thousands of rotations ago, when their ship became maneuverable enough that there was little chance of those weapons hitting their mark.

Vit’r’an knew that the humans had drawn him into a trap. He was holding back, waiting for an opportunity to present itself for him to disable and capture one of their ships. But now, the flow of battle had turned. His enemies knew that they had weapons that were effective against his ship. And the damage to his drives will make it impossible for him to evade all of their fire. Their ships could move around his in circles. He saw the rest of the human forces were on an intercept course, no doubt to fire their own mass drivers. While the three ships that had inflicted so much hurt were slowly turning around, coming back from his ship’s rear. Enraged Vit’r’an turned to his crew.

“Lock on Pasha’ka on the ships seven to ten, target the ship’s one and two with Larsha’ka.” Vit’r’an ordered, “Fire when ready!” Before the human heavy ships turn, he would destroy the rest.