The Terminal War: A Space Opera Novel (A Carson Mach Adventure) (26 page)

“Babs, Tulula, get your asses down there,” Mach said. “See if the corpses can help.”

Squid Three chirped and spread its tentacles.
 

“You’re coming too,” Babcock said to his little AI droid. He stood and made for the door. Tulula remained in her chair.
 

“Problem?” Mach asked.
 

“They’re sacred. We’re not supposed to see them, never mind talk to them. It’s all I can even do right now not to reach out to them with my mind. I’d corrupt them.”

Mach took a deep breath to stop himself saying something he’d regret. Tulula would find out in her own time exactly how sacred her supposed Saviors were. They were lucky to be here and not destroyed by their own terrible experiments.
 

“You’re the best person for the job,” Mach said, playing to her vestan logic. “Babs might need translations or help with cultural nuances. It’s probably their only chance for survival if things continue as they are.”

Tulula bowed her head and followed Babcock out the door. Squid Three hovered by the side of her head and rested a tentacle on her shoulder.
 

Another pair of cruisers uncloaked in the distance, interestingly enough, on a similar trajectory to the previous ones. They fired off two sets of torpedoes again before being destroyed. The shield’s green tinge faded.
 

“They can’t just sit there and take like for like damage,” Sanchez said. “Doesn’t take a genius to work out who’ll end up winning.”

“Agreed,” Mach said and switched to the Commonwealth command voice channel. “Commander Tralis, what’s your plan?”

“Exactly the same as before. We keep moving and engage no more than two horns. Anything more and we’ll be swamped.”

“Why not send out fighter drones to search for cruisers?”

Tralis’ tone hardened. “Are you telling me how to do my job?”

Mach shook his head. “No… I’m just… Forget it.”

“You’ve got my permission to fire, but I don’t need to remind you of your priority. Keep your ship in the belt.”

“Don’t worry, Commander. You can rely on us.” Mach tapped his smart-screen to end the transmission. He moved over to the holocontrols and sat next to Lassea. “Some things never change.”

“Like what?” Lassea asked, and narrowed her eyes when Mach reached for the sub-controls. He liked that she’d got protective over the dashboard when she piloted the
Intrepid
.
 

“The CW fighting defensive battles,” Sanchez answered for Mach. “They’d rather sit on their butts and let it play out, which is exactly what the horans and lacterns expect.”

“So we give the buggers something to think about,” Mach said. He remotely fired up the fighter drone and started the docking bay door-opening procedure. A holoscreen flashed in front of him, displaying a view from the cockpit. “Tralis told us to keep our ship in the belt. He said nothing about drones.”

On the main viewscreen, the Axis was back in their initial launch positions, formed up in anticipation of where the CW fleet was heading.
 

The southern and northern horns advanced, faster than before. This time they sent their disposable vanguard—ships captured from around the galaxy who were given a simple choice: pilot their vessels into the side of the enemy and detonate a bomb just before impact, or be executed along with any member from their family, village or town of origin. Not exactly a great deal different to the lactern ‘art’ of warfare.

Crude, but effective—if you didn’t care about the casualties.
 

Beringer moved closer to the viewscreen and zoomed in.
 

A ragtag group of twenty ships powered away from the front of the two horns, all different shapes, colors and sizes, some looking ready for the scrapyard. Mach hardly recognized a single one but had always hated the sight of horans using this tactic. He knew inside each vessel frightened aliens would be sacrificing themselves for a cause they didn’t believe in, to save their family or community.
 

Two central capital ships fired speculative missiles at the vestan shield sphere. One struck a member of the vanguard on the way through, a small dirty gray orb with stubby fins, and blew it into thousands of pieces.
 

Mach sighed. At least that alien was spared the chilling final moments before impact. He rested his hand on Lassea’s shoulder. “How would you like that kind of encouragement?”

“You know, the academy tells us this stuff, but I never quite believed it.”

“When it comes to horans, believe anything bad, and you’ll be closer to the truth.”

“Morgan said that about you.”

“I’ve said it about him.”

Behind the vanguard, each horn consisted of one capital ship, five destroyers and at least twenty fighter drones. Within minutes, the northern and southern formations and the main body of the CW fleet would be in lethal range of each other. The eastern and western groups weren’t far behind, but Tralis was doing a good job directing the flanking move, keeping over half the Axis fleet at a safe distance.
 

The sub-controls beeped, informing Mach the bay door was fully open. He focused back on the task at hand. Scenes of previous floating wreckages flashed through his mind. He rubbed his clammy palms against the sides of his seat and launched the drone. It powered out of the bay, straight between two small asteroids, and out into open space. Mach engaged the port and rear thrusters and swept around in a wide diving arc, surveying the view and checking how well hidden the
Intrepid
was.
 

Once satisfied with his handling skills, he set a course for where the last two cloaked ships appeared. If any others were waiting along a similar trajectory, they’d have to show themselves to engage. Mach fired the drone’s two side-mounted lasers on an extended shot and thrust back and forth.
 

Both beams speared through the blackness, spraying tiny laser bolts in a hopeful pattern. A few minutes of this passed until the drone’s laser batteries were empty. Mach’s plan of fishing out the cloaked ships had resulted in no hits.

“At least you tried,” Sanchez said. “What next?”

“How about distracting one of those horns with our little kamikaze run?”

The big hunter smiled. “Now you’re talking.”

Mach looked back to the main viewscreen. The shield had almost faded to nothing on the right side of the CW formation. Most of the vanguard had crashed against it, weakening its effectiveness. Two small craft had got through and headed for the closest capital ship. Destroyers didn’t give either a chance to get close and battered them with quad lasers. Two brilliant white lights flashed across space when the internal bombs, planned to explode against the shield or a hull, detonated at a harmless distance.
 

Four more lactern cruisers uncloaked in front of the shield’s breach and fired their torpedoes in sequence at the same CW destroyer. Mach’s heart skipped a beat, and he winced.

The first two explosions took out the CW destroyer’s personal shield. The second two torpedoes punctured through its side and exploded, sending debris and fire spewing out of two ugly gouges in its hull. The ship’s power cut and it drifted lifelessly away from the fight, its thrusters dead, along with its crew.

Multiple lasers ripped the cruisers to shreds, but there was no sense of victory there; it was just the final part of the lactern game. The ruined cruisers joined the rest of the mangled wreckage and pieces of debris that floated between the two opposing forces.
 

Lassea cupped her hand over her mouth and took a sharp intake of breath. Nigel had stopped whatever he was doing and peered at the wrecked destroyer.
 

Beringer raised his smart-screen. “Babs, how you getting on with the Saviors?”

“Just got talking, give me a few minutes,” he replied.

Mach couldn’t afford to wait for a theory, and if he didn’t do something, this war was lost. He turned the drone in the direction of the capital ship at the center of the southern horn and gunned the engines to full power. This would do for an opening shot, but the CW was on the verge of needing something special if they didn’t start knocking out the Axis in greater numbers.
 

*

Babcock stood over the Saviors’ transparent cylinders in the cargo bay. Each thin vestan face had a pious expression as if they were experiencing a pleasant dream.
 

A small gamma generator softly hummed in the center, providing enough power to keep the tombs running for the foreseeable future. The thought of active minds in dead bodies sent a shiver down his spine.
 

Tulula had remained several meters away and leaned around a dark blue hover-truck. He’d never seen her act like this before, especially as Sanchez continued to rub off on her.
 

“Vestan channel eight,” she said. “I don’t need it.”

Babcock switched channels and raised his smart-screen. “This is Kingsley Babcock. Can you hear me?”

“Who is the vestan in our presence,” a low hollow voice said. “Identify yourself.”

Tulula tentatively stepped forward, glanced down at the closest cylinder, and spoke to them in their native tongue.
 

“For the sake of decorum, we’ll communicate in Salus Common,” the voice replied. “You may leave now.”

Tulula bowed her head and turned toward the exit. Babcock gently grabbed her arm. “Wait. I need you here. Nobody knows the
Intrepid
like you.”

“She doesn’t belong in our presence. Until we establish a new location—”

“You won’t have any location if you don’t listen to me,” Babcock said, unable to stop himself interrupting. The urgency of the situation outside demanded it. “Who am I speaking to?”

“You may call us Hanos. Are you threatening our existence?”

“No. Your old partners are. There’s a war raging outside, and unless you can give us an edge, I can’t guarantee any of us will survive.”

“The alternative to death is capture by the horans,” Tulula added.
 

A strange bubbling sound came through the speaker. “How do you expect us to help?”

“Do you know anything about lactern cloaking?” Babcock asked.
 

The bubbling again, as if they were having a private conversation. Babcock looked across to Tulula. She attempted to shrug, although it looked like more of a roll of the shoulders.
 

“You have strange thoughts, Tulula,” Hanos said. “Who is the man that invades your memories?”

Babcock blushed a little. If Tulula didn’t have black skin, he guessed she’d be doing the same over Sanchez, and decided it was best if they stayed on topic for the sake of brevity and lack of embarrassment. “I haven’t brought our engineer down for you to interrogate. Your species worked with the lacterns. Is there any way to detect their cloaking?”

“They use an array of particles unknown to us,” Hanos said. “Any solution would be guesswork. We don’t guess.”

“You must, if you pioneer tech. Otherwise, how do you create anything?”

Squid Three chirped and circled the cylinders.
 

“Planning and multiple result-based iterations. The base has to be solid.”

Babcock groaned. He wasn’t getting any support from Tulula, which was understandable to a certain extent, but all things considered, he needed a way to make the Saviors act with a little more urgency.
 

Threatening them seemed like the only course of action. Babcock crouched by the generator and activated its control pad.
 

“What are you doing?” Hanos said.
 

“If you can’t help us, we can’t help you. I’m switching you off.”

Tulula jerked forward but stopped herself. Babcock knew she’d been with the crew long enough to understand a bluff. It was part of Mach’s standard operating procedures.
 

The bubbling sound increased in volume and continued for several seconds.
 

“We know the code for two lactern particles,” Hanos said. “But there’s no guarantee they’re used in cloaking. You’ll have to reconfigure the scanner, but it means you’ll lose all capability to track horan and Commonwealth ships.”

Tulula tapped at her smart-screen. “They’ve sent me the codes. Let’s get moving.”

“You must become a Guardian, Tulula,” Hanos said. “No living vestan can see us. Who is the other vestan on board?”

“Sorry,” Tulula replied. “You’ll have to find someone else. I’ll ask Nigel and let you know.”

“You can’t deny our request.”

“She can, and we need to go.”
 

Babcock, Squid Three, and Tulula headed straight for the exit. They at least had a plan, which was better than what they had before they came to the cargo bay.

“Kingsley Babcock,” Hanos said.
 

Babcock paused and glanced over his shoulder at the cylinders. “That’s my name.”

“We will remember it.”

*

Mach aimed the drone’s lasers at the southern horn’s capital ship. He wasn’t far from being able to get off an effective shot but had to pass a destroyer. Sanchez and Beringer stood either side of him, willing the craft on. So far, the horans and lacterns hadn’t reacted to the approach. The main enemy ahead consumed their attentions, or the drone hadn’t registered amongst the debris.
 

“Almost there,” Mach said. “Just another few seconds.”

“Go for the bridge,” Sanchez said. “It won’t break through, but it’ll give ‘em a hell of a shock.”

“Engines,” Beringer said. “You might get a lucky hit.”

Mach screwed his face and hovered his thumb over the fire button. He had to make this one count. Since Babcock had gone, four more cruisers had appeared and destroyed another CW destroyer.
 

The Axis was losing ships, but only the snide attack variety, and not the big powerful ones that were about to reach an effective firing range themselves.
 

A flash of light brightened the drone’s cockpit.
 

Two seconds later the feed cut to static.