Rift Breaker (29 page)

Raegar cursed. The enemy had a major advantage. The attack could come from any angle at any time and no instrument on the Composite ships had been able to detect the glittering matter. On that thought, Raegar looked up. The light specs had moved with the fleet. They separated and weaved through red group's formation. The positioning was supremely calculated; red group was about to be caught in crossfire. He glanced back at the city. Thick clouds of dust and smoke spread throughout Cenyulone's streets; the ground was invisible. An idea sparked in his mind.

‘All vessels drop altitude to one fifty and front all primary weapons to the sky,' he said on the open channel.

The battleships lowered past the Nimbus. The wrecked city drew closer. Dust clouds engulfed the forward pane as the
Raticia
sank into befogging cover. Once at one fifty altitude the front thrusters fired and the
Raticia
elevated her nose. The fog thinned as the front of the ship poked out above the swirling dust.

Red group followed through with the order and two of their ships nestled close to the
Raticia
. The hologram looked as if the city buildings had instantly regrown.

High above the Nimbus the wall of warpholes tore open. Volleys of discharge spewed forth. Glaring blasts of light, explosive projectiles and powerful beams pierced the sky, forming a web of explosions and firepower directed precisely where red group had previously formed. Raegar gave an order for absolute comms silence and extended the command to every other Composite unit. Every soul on the ground watched nervously as the firepower died down and the last explosion snuffed out.

As Raegar had hoped, enemy warships began to penetrate the sky. They crept out in the same web formation their weapons fire had travelled.

‘Hold your fire,' he said softly, ‘Choose your targets.'

Their black bodies emerged with trails of fighters flying along their sides. Every Tranquillian unit — the Nimbus cannons, the
missile mechs, the low flying fighters and the upturned warships — obtained a targeting lock.

Raegar focused on his personal screen and watched the number of enemy signals increase. He tapped the armrest and waited for a certain number of ships to enter — the maximum number of targets that could be exposed to a simultaneous bombardment. When that number had gathered, he pressed his finger to the comms control. ‘Fire at will.'

On the outskirts of Cenyulone's orbit, the
Inhibitan
drifted on the edge of what was noticeable. Luylla meditated in the darkened cockpit. She had come to warn the Composite of an imminent attack, but evidently they were already aware.

Above the planet's glow, the defence platforms had been downgraded to a metallic asteroid belt. No orbital traffic was to be seen and her receivers picked up no recognisable transmissions. However, a lone, heavily coded signal resounded across the sky. She adjusted settings on the receiver and tried to get a definitive lock. The speaker spat out layered, incomprehensible gibberish. After several failed attempts to translate the message she turned it off and contemplated her next move.

A shuffling in the cockpit startled her. She turned to see Tazman standing at the doorway.

‘You shouldn't be up,' she said, rising to offer her arm. He took
it and limped to the co-pilot's seat, holding her tight as he settled into the chair.

‘Thank you,' he managed.

‘No problem,' she replied, crossing back to her place.

They both sat there for a while, staring at the planet without speaking. Tazman's hair spiked to one side. His head bobbed slightly with his eyes half open. Tail gave a solitary flick from its resting position in his lap. He held it in both hands.

‘Where are we?' he asked drowsily.

She opened her mouth to speak, her concern for his condition allowed a moment to escape before she answered, ‘Cenyulone.' Tazman scrunched his face in confusion. She explained further. ‘Milton said the Xoeloid things were coming here.'

Tazman's eyes widened. ‘What? Then it's all over. They won. We lost.' He paused. ‘Where's Milton?'

‘I don't know … we got separated on Poria.'

‘Huh?'

‘The Composite outpost.'

‘We left him there? They have him?'

Another beat passed.

‘I don't know,' said Luylla.

She looked ahead anxiously. Something caught her attention. ‘Look,' she said, pointing.

A large lingering shape moved across the glow of the planet. She recognised the sharp-edged design. A sliver of light expanded ahead of the vessel. A stream of loose energy fire
burst from the strange occurrence and veered off into space. The warship continued its advancement; the nose touched the light and disappeared into it. The sliver swallowed the vessel whole. Once the back end of the ship was gone, the light shrank and disappeared, leaving a residue of glistening powder that blinked out to nothing.

Luylla aimed the scanner at the empty space. The readout showed no residue of a quantum jump or any sign of the ship's density.

‘Vanished,' she said.

Tazman looked up at the screen. ‘What is this?' he said, pointing at the on-screen wavelengths.

‘There's some kind of signal in the sky,' she replied. ‘But it's heavily coded.'

Tazman's tail flicked off his lap. He twisted the tuning dial and helped himself to an arrangement of switches before reaching over to type something on the keypad. The receiver emitted a high-pitched whine and the wavelengths merged. The graphical representations meshed into a singular pattern and a clean, crisp sound transmitted clearly throughout the cockpit. The groan of the safe haven. Tazman crinkled his eyebrows and cut the sound. He sat back, breathed deeply for a moment and swallowed. His eyes tensed in deep concentration.

‘That was on a Composite frequency,' he uttered. He pointed his index finger and opened his mouth but no sound came out. After a pause, he tried again.

‘Warpholes,' he mumbled.

‘What?'

‘Warpholes or rift gates. Reelai was talking about them.' Tazman put his palm on his forehead and slid his hand down his face. ‘That light we just saw, it was a warphole, a portal through space and time.' Tazman turned in his chair to face her. ‘I didn't believe Reelai when he said they could be controlled like that.'

‘Well it seems the Xoeloid have found a way,' said Luylla waving at the planet.

‘Oh no!' said Tazman, looking away, ‘Milton!'

‘What about him?' Luylla asked.

He turned to her again, ‘Reelai also said Milton had the potential to open warpholes.' He paused and reverted his gaze to the planet. ‘That was why they wanted him in the first place. That safe haven was all part of some experiment. Reelai wanted to open his own warphole.' Tazman sighed and slumped back into his seat. ‘Well now we know how they beat us here.'

‘Then why would this noise be on a Composite frequency?' asked Luylla.

Tazman thought again. ‘Can you get us closer to the source?'

She eyed him.

‘Just be ready to jump out of here,' he added.

Luylla accelerated. As they closed distance, the ruined space platform resembled more recognisable shapes. Pieces of weaponry and structure that had been ripped apart were now in orbital rotation.

‘Keep a fix,' said Tazman, scanning the area.

Luylla turned and flew along the line of space junk. Spinning bits and pieces patted the hull. According to the scanner, the source lay just around the curve of the planet. She steered tight against the wreckage, hiding her ship among the scrap metal. The source object appeared in the distance from behind a criss-crossed section of scaffolding. A gold sheen glinted off its surface.

‘That's it,' said Luylla. The wavelength suddenly intensified.

Tazman stared ahead. ‘I know what that is!' he blurted. ‘That … that's the phutting hypersat!'

Luylla gave him a blank look. The
Inhibitan
dipped under a piece of blast shielding.

‘Okay,' he began. ‘The Tranquillian Composite has been experimenting with long-range communications. The last I heard was that they had found a way to beam a transmission through hyperspace with the hypersat. If the Xoeloid needed this signal to use their warpholes, then the hypersat would be the perfect instrument to rally an army from who knows where.' Tazman clicked his fingers. ‘And we need to go for help right now.'

An object blazed overhead and made a sharp right. The scan results loaded onto the forward pane, an unknown fighter with spiked wings.

‘Crap,' yelped Tazman.

Luylla accelerated. The craft circled around and pumped orange bursts at the
Inhibitan
. The shots pounded the energy
shield and blue waves fluttered across the view. The shots that missed knocked apart the surrounding space debris.

Luylla pulled into the open; she fired the thrusters to maximum, angling away from the hypersat. The winged adversary shot across her path.

The photon reactor primed for antimatter annihilation; the missile lock went off at the same time. Luylla reached over the controls and pushed the lever. An explosion thundered against the
Inhibitan
's left and the stars swivelled to the side. The bearing readouts spun erratically and an abort message cancelled the quantum jump. Electric blue crackled out across the pane.

‘The shield is gone,' yelled Tazman.

The hypersat spun into view. It had a triangular opening on one of its sides. The scanner caught the fighter circling for another pass.

Luylla tightened her grip and steadied the controls as she accelerated. With the shields out of commission the station was the only cover she was going to get. She stared down at the triangle opening. The missile lock went off again and she refused to break her stare, concentrating, imagining the ship as an extension of her body. The hypersat grew larger and stretched over the pane. She gritted her teeth and tilted to the right at the last moment, slicing into the hole with excess speed. The ship's wing scraped against the top of the tunnel. A burst of orange sparks flashed on the wall. The missile lock disappeared. Luylla emptied her lungs and hit the reverse thrusters. The
Inhibitan
slowed. Gas expelled from hidden vents. She aligned the wobbling nose with the tunnel's guiding lights and drifted inside. The tunnel opened up to a landing platform crowded with construction equipment and she lowered her ship onto one of the unoccupied pads.

‘So much for stealth,' she muttered.

Leroy straightened his coat and strode behind his soilders into the hypersat hangar. ‘Well, well, well,' he said with a half smile. His elite team of five surrounded the invading ship. Their rifles heated with rising pitches.

The squad leader glanced back and Leroy gave the nod. Bursts of electric blue pulses pounded the craft's hull. A stream shocked against the forward pane and punched numerous holes before bursting the window in a hail of giant shards. The squad concentrated on the front half. Holes, burns and melt marks dotted its metallic skin like a disease. The squad member lobbed a black canister that bounced off the craft nose and into the broken opening. A blast of flame swirled from the cockpit.

‘Mission accomplished,' smiled Leroy. As usual his team had everything in their capable hands, or pads or tentacles or whatever. ‘Salvage anything useful. We will not be returning to Cenyulone.' He marched out.

The commandos opened the foreign ship and did a sweep. No life forms were aboard. They had been vaporised in the explosion.
The squad however did find numerous supply containers bearing medical supplies, rations, water and matraelium fuel. They were quite happy with the find and began to drag them down the ramp. To take an inventory, one of the soldiers went for the Composite dropship to get a data pad. He crossed the hold and went up to the cockpit. Rummaging about, he paused, catching movement in the reflection of the forward pane. Before he could turn he was struck over the head. He collapsed with his finger pressed on his rifle trigger.