Apex (16 page)

 

Chapter 17

W
HEN
THE
R
ESOLUTE
arrived in the Mewlon System, it came to a halt outside the orbit of the third of seven planets with the immediate space clear on sensors, but after a few minutes of signal lag catching up a single ship waiting just off the jumpline was detected. Not long after it began a microjump in the
Resolute
's direction.

“Here comes the other frigate,” Jalia guessed, sitting at the helm station. “Run or fight?”

“We need to refuel,” Riax said, looking over her shoulder at the sensor display, “and there's only one planet in this system to go to. If we don't fight them now, they can just sit and wait for us to come in.”

“Fight it is,” Jalia said, reactivating the gravity drive. “I'm moving us off the jumpline. Anywhere in particular you want them to catch up to us?”

“Clear space where we don't have to maneuver. I need to siphon power from the engines to run the weapons.”

“Easy enough,” she said, plotting a generic heading at low speed. “You guys can draw lots now, because it's my ship and I'm calling dibs on one of the turrets.”

Ella half laughed. “I'll take the helm and monitor sensors and shields,” she said, knowing that some maneuvering might be necessary, even if it was just rolling the ship to present an undamaged section of shield towards the enemy. Basic naval combat doctrine that the Junta mat or may not have been aware of.

“Get your batteries warmed up,” Riax said, walking over to an auxiliary panel that he'd reconfigured for energy distribution. Now that the ship was en route, he ran the engines up to 7% and diverted their electrical power into the makeshift power conduits that led to the four weapon systems. It was eating up fuel at an alarming rate, but it was the only way to provide sufficient power.

Orrona and Marren slid into the turret control chairs that Riax had installed on the now cramped and cluttered bridge instead of locating them at or near the actual turret locations as most warship designs provided. They powered them up with practiced ease, with Jalia lagging behind a bit.

Once all three lachar turrets were powered and functioning nominally, Riax shunted the remaining power to the plasma turret and took the chair that held its many controls. He was the only person he trusted to fire it, given the number of manual operations that he was going to have to make during combat. Some of the control levers and switches, in fact, had been designed for telekinetic toggling and out of arm's reach entirely.

“Thirty seconds,” Ella announced in Terran. “Twenty dek,” she repeated in the commerce language for Jalia's sake.

“Adjust shields to auxiliary setting,” Riax told her.

The Cres altered the shield dynamics with the press of a single button, activating the recalibration required for the simultaneous operation of the plasma cannon. “Shields ready and at full power, equal distribution.”

“Adjust as necessary,” Riax allowed as he began to pull charge from the capacitor and create plasma within the containment field.

“In-­jump complete,” Ella continued to report, “frigate closing. Adjusting attitude to bring plasma cannon to bear.”

On Jalia's targeting screen the enemy ship suddenly rolled out of view. “Hey!” she complained.

Riax smiled and took a second to find the minds of the two Kayna elsewhere in the ship and warn them that battle was imminent. “Hold fire until they close. They don't know we're armed yet. Give me one clear shot if you can,” he said, talking to Ella as much as the other gunners, then repeated the hold order for Jalia.

A small orange sphere formed inside a crater atop the plasma turret. It slowly grew in size, coming to a diameter of 1.4 meters. The plasma intensified slightly, but still retained a yellow/orange coloration, held aloft within a magnetic bubble and radiating away part of its energy to open space. The cannon had to continually be adding charge to maintain equilibrium as Riax waited for the optimal moment to fire.

The Nevax frigate closed with the
Resolute
, intent on boarding much as its twin had. On the sensor display it was already extending its breaching dock, the end of which matched the device still lodged in the
Resolute
's hull. Either the mercs entirely missed the rad signature of the plasma cannon, which stood out like fireworks in a night sky, or they didn't comprehend what their sensors were telling them, because they moved in on the freighter as if it was of no threat to them.

The plasma bolt that launched towards their ship quickly corrected that problem. Once past the limited guiding range of the cannon's magnetic fields, it began to spread out into a five meter wide blob of quickly cooling destructive power, but with the frigate so close it impacted with over 80% intensity.

It hit on the belly of the smaller ship, washing over the shields as if it were a water balloon puncturing and expanding in all directions, draining more than half their shield strength with the single shot. One of the
Resolute
's lachar batteries opened up as well, firing off less powerful red lances of energy at a rate of about one every three seconds.

It took a painfully long moment for the frigate to respond, having been caught completely off guard. When it did, three equally red lachar batteries opened up on the freighter as the two keet long enemy ship pivoted on its bow, swinging its aft end around and presenting a smaller cross section. That brought one of its six lachar batteries out of line, but allowed two more dorsal bow-­mounted batteries to open up on the
Resolute
.

Riax had the plasma cannon charging again, but waiting through the recharge was nerve-­racking. With a limited available power flow, the slower charge rate was the only way to make the more potent weapon viable. Had he wanted to, he could fire what little plasma had already gathered at any moment, but the damage would be significantly less, and consecutively less with multiple smaller blasts, because increased surface area would allow more energy to radiate off prior to impact.

He had to wait . . . and in battle that was the last thing a gunner wanted to do.

Fortunately Ella was on top of things and maneuvered the
Resolute
to bring another of its lachar batteries to bear while the plasma cannon temporarily rotated out of the line of sight. Jalia got her first opening and fired a total of twelve shots before the target rolled out of view again.

With the damage done to the frigate's shields by the plasma cannon, and the subsequent lachar blasts eating into the remainder, the freighter seemed to have the advantage in the shielding wars, given that by percent the mercs' shields were losing strength at a faster rate than the freighter's. Trouble was, even though the frigate was smaller and losing its shields faster, it was a
warship
, which meant armor plating and an interior design maximizing structural integrity and protecting key systems. The
Resolute
was a freighter, meaning it was basically an empty box with engines attached, and aside from the enhanced shields it was an easy target.

By the time the ship had spun back around the plasma cannon reached full charge and Riax hit the frigate on the bow shields, which in this case was the same shield covering the entire ship, not segmented like most larger ship designs fielded. The plasma blast collapsed the shield and kissed the armored hull beneath, but didn't penetrate it. The one lachar battery in range began to chip away at the armor as the frigate's four batteries patiently brought the
Resolute
's shield strength down below 50%.

Ella rolled the ship again, while strengthening the bow shields. The freighter was equipped with two shield zones, generated by many arrays, which allowed power to be shifted proportionally between either zone, mainly to afford extra energy to the bow shields during jump travel. Most of the frigate's lachar blasts were hitting the bow shield that covered the plasma cannon, and as a result it was down to 37% while the aft shield was sitting at 65%.

Shield power existed in two forms, energy already deployed into the shield matrix and the recharge rate. Matrix energy could be shifted from one shield to another, with considerable loss during transfer, or the recharge energy could be allotted more to one shield than another, which was the tactic Ella employed while shifting the full recharge power into the bow shield to protect the plasma cannon. Without it, their three lachar batteries would surely lose out against the frigate's six, given that they were of the same make and yield.

“Ella, try to give me a shot at their engines,” Riax said as he waited through another recharge period. The
Resolute
was less maneuverable than the frigate, but if their pilot wasn't up to snuff they had a chance.

Firing the plasma engines, Ella tried to break the T-­shaped formation that the frigate was holding by circling around parallel to them. Unfortunately the frigate simply pivoted again and kept their bow firing arc solidly on the flank of the freighter.

Ella wasn't finished, though. She also pivoted the
Resolute
around so the ships squared off face to face while ever so slightly drifting upwards . . . then she slammed in the engines at 30% thrust, heading directly for the merc ship on a collision course.

“Get ready,” she yelled, increasing the slight angle the ship was at while rolling it over at the same time. Predictably, her opposite responded out of reflex and activated their plasma engines as well, intending to scoot underneath the freighter at even greater passing speeds, giving the freighter less of an opportunity to hit their flank.

Had the pilot been Ella's equal, it would have been patient enough to simply pivot the ship again while matching the angular rate to the freighter's approach rate, keeping the frigate's heavier bow armor in blocking position throughout the maneuver. Because it didn't, it gave the
Resolute
a brief window of opportunity as the plasma cannon rotated into view and passed by the frigate's engine bank.

It was an opportunity that any Human gunner, let alone a level 8 naval warfare specialist, wasn't going to miss taking advantage of. Riax timed the plasma release perfectly, firing before the frigate arrived so that the ‘water balloon' mushroomed against the top of the ship's engines.

The plasma ate through the armor plating and cored through a third of the plasma engines, as well as knocking out 83% of its gravity drives, significantly reducing its maneuvering power and giving the
Resolute
the ability to navigate into whatever firing arc it preferred.

“Target their engines,” Riax ordered. “Leave them dead in the water then get us out of here before they get through our shields.”

“Why aren't we targeting their weapons?” Jalia asked as Ella translated.

“Later,” Ella answered, given that Riax couldn't understand the question. “Just knock those engines out, they're still fighting me,” she said, playing cat and mouse as the frigate twisted to and fro trying to shake the freighter out of the preferred attack zones.

Another small internal explosion broke through the frigate's hull.

“Got ‘em,” Marren reported as the frigate began to list. Its plasma engines were completely offline now, though several engines remained undamaged. Their power conduits had been cut by Marren's precision shots into the large hole that the plasma blast had cored into the ship, thus exposing vital internal components.

“How's it look?” Riax asked, holding off firing the cannon again.

“They're dead in the water,” Ella reported enthusiastically.

“Get us out of here,” he said, shooting off the plasma into space and powering down the turret.

Ella fired up the plasma drive and moved them away on a trajectory due aft of the frigate, taking them out of their firing arcs. Once several hundred keets away, Riax redirected engine power from the weapons back to their intended purpose and Jalia, now back at the helm, set course for Agas, the primary population center within the system and the only place where they could refuel, refurbish, and restock the ship.

Assuming there weren't more enemies lying in wait.

 

Chapter 18

U
PON
APPROACHING
A
GAS
the
Resolute
had received no attention. The Concordat battleship orbited oblivious to their approach, as did the small Resari fleet that guarded the planet. The diminutive race made up 72% of Agas's population and controlled the planet as one of four colonies while allowing a modest level of commerce and cohabitation with other races.

Most of the commerce occurred in three surface spaceports and six orbiting stations, the latter of which Jalia took the
Resolute
to for refueling. The Resari station was little more than a cubic rectangle with docking pylons sticking out at various angles. Upon querying the dockmaster, the freighter was assigned a medium slip opposite a slightly larger twin. The two Zaklorn-­designed ships were docked on opposite sides of a pylon that didn't completely eclipse the view of each other. The larger freighter also appeared to be the older, both in model and wear and tear. Pockmarked with various damaged/repaired areas to its hull, the cargo hauler was easily identifiable as the
Predlock
, a ship Jalia was familiar with.

Most of the station's docking slips were empty, and the fourth of them that were full had all been clustered around one end, maximizing transit within that area of the station. Jalia arranged for refueling through the station's automated assembly while she and Marren left the ship for some shopping. Riax remained onboard along with the Kayna while the other two Cres slipped out on their own clandestine shopping mission. There was much they needed in way of supplies and spare parts, especially given the Human's request list . . . with the intent being to fabricate additional equipment and defenses for the
Resolute
.

Riax spent the downtime monitoring the refueling and putting the last touches on his transmitter. He ran it through several test sequences, verifying it was working as intended. Human transmitters of this kind were the size of a wristband, but given the lack of adequate technology this one massed twenty times greater than Riax. It still worked though, and that was the point.

When he activated the transmitter and sent out the Human ‘handshake' protocols, he wasn't expecting a response, yet he received not one, but two return signals.

“Hello . . .” he said appreciatively as he went a step further and attempted to access the grid. It responded instantly, as if the past 16,000 years' lack of maintenance wasn't even an issue. It felt good to Riax to know that something of the Empire was left besides him.

The system's nexus was indeed operational, and was the source of one of the handshake responses. Riax immediately dove into the system and pulled up a grid diagnostic, resulting in a galaxy-­wide hologram appearing above a small display hardwired into the crude transmitter.

As expected, the conduit linkages had been severed, so the only realtime information available was from the local subsector of the grid. There had originally been 89 nexuses in this area linked to the Severato, Jinalla, and Erandis conduits, all of which had been disabled or destroyed. Slower, redundant nexus to nexus communication had been retained, of course, but 62 of the nexuses had also gone off-­line, creating gaps in the grid. As it was, only 12 nexuses were linked to the Veyya System's . . . which was now called Mewlon.

One nexus was enough to backup all the data within the grid, so Riax had a multitude of options to work with but one in particular thrust its way forward on his priority list. He delved into the grid's history files on Earth and located the point of contact disruption.

“308,” he echoed aloud, looking at the date. He had been wounded and put into the pod in the year 13,802,117 . . . which meant the homeworld had fallen 191 years later. That was remarkably fast, given the size of the Human Empire.

A tight knife of pain slipped through his emotional armor as he looked through the synopsis of the fall. Having only the Cres's word to take for it had been bad enough, but seeing it recorded here in detail made it all the more real and the weight of eventual defeat in the war he'd just been fighting pressed down on him heavily. He took a moment to steady himself and shoved the pain back inside the mental containment bottle. He had work to do. The emotion could wait.

Riax expanded his timeline research and compiled a map of system losses coinciding with nexuses going off-­line. Fortunately, the grid had remained active for the most part, with the hubs going down in the aftermath . . . the technological ‘purge' the Cres had spoken of.

That was critical, because it meant he had access to war records. He could see how the enemy had beaten them and wouldn't have to rebuild blind to the threat, wherever it was now. It was odd, very, very odd that they hadn't remained and claimed some of the galaxy for their own . . . or had they? Maybe the Cres just weren't aware of it because they weren't in this slice of the galaxy?

Riax chewed on his lip, deep in thought. There was so much at stake that he couldn't be rash about this. He had to lay low, gather intelligence, and plan thoroughly. If the enemy could take out the Empire at its height it would take little effort on their part to swat away any attempt he could make at rebuilding unless he was shrewd about it.

There was so much information to go through that it would take months, if not years to sort out. Riax reminded himself to be patient and focus on the moment at hand. He needed to reach either safety or anonymity, and right now that meant surviving until reaching Cres territory.

The second handshake response returned to mind and Riax pulled up its location on the grid.

“Interesting,” he mewed, noting that the facility was located on a planet that had since become a moon of a gas giant. Current status listed the clandestine outpost as inactive, with the comm system running on environmental backups. That gave it power to maintain minimal internal operations while it stored up enough energy for short transmission bursts, such as the handshake response. Backup protocol, however, was an energy-­saving mode and didn't allow direct linkage through the grid, so Riax had no way of knowing how much of the facility was still intact.

Even if there were just some pieces lying around it could prove invaluable in his efforts to upgrade the
Resolute
. The moon in question was currently uninhabited and covered with sprawling vegetation, which was odd considering that it had previously been barren desert. Whatever had prompted the gravitational catch by the gas giant must have also altered the orbit enough for considerable climate change, or maybe some form of terraforming project by the locals or previous inhabitants within the system.

There was no way for Riax to be sure, but it was becoming clear that the galaxy had drastically changed during his ‘timeout' in the pod. It was going to be a new game now, with new pitfalls and opportunities, but the more pieces of the past he could recover the better. How he was going to play this was the big question. Rebuilding the past was inviting a second defeat. Humans were notorious, though, for learning to adapt, which meant he had to work from a clean slate if the Empire was to survive.

T
HOUGHTS
TO
THAT
end consumed his time until the others returned from their supply run and shook him from his study. They had originally planned to leave the system as soon as the ship was refueled and hopefully jump into the next leg of their journey before more enemies manifested themselves, but Riax nixed their immediate departure and gathered the crew in cargo bay 3 as soon as Jalia had them clear of the station and on a lazy exit vector from Agas.

Since all the races present spoke the commerce language, save for him, Riax had Ella translate for the Junta and Kayna as he spoke in Terran.

“While you've been on the station I finished construction of the transmitter,” he said, pausing and pointing to the monstrosity behind him while Ella repeated his words.

“Luckily the hub within this system is still functional and I was able to access what's left of our interstellar communications grid,” he said, pausing again for translation. Speaking in single sentences was annoying, but until he learned the commerce language he was going to have to put up with the inconvenience.

“I also received a response signal from a second Human installation within the system . . . It is a small subsurface outpost located on an uninhabited moon . . . I do not know how intact it is, but at the very least the comm system is operational, and therefore salvageable.”

“Hold on a second,” Jalia interrupted, speaking Esset so Riax would understand. “You're saying there are not one, but
two
Human facilities in the system? They couldn't have gone unnoticed all this time, unless you camouflaged them or something?”

“Or something,” he repeated sarcastically in Esset, then switched back to Terran. “Both facilities are clandestine, they're not meant to be found, so it's probable that a good deal of technology remains.”

“What of the comm hub?” Ella asked as she translated. “Cannot that be salvaged as well?”

Riax cringed. “Possibly, but it's the only one left in the system. If I dismantle it then we lose access to the grid here and eliminate a link in a very short chain. That, and it's located in the photosphere of the star.”

All three of the Cres were taken aback by that factoid and Ella hesitated a moment before translating.

“In the
star
?” Jalia echoed. “You're kidding.”

Riax shook his head ‘no.'

One of the Kayna whose name was impossible to pronounce but that Riax had nicknamed ‘Wes,' uttered a three-­syllable, high pitched bark that passed for a laugh in their race. Then it went on to rumble through a pithy statement having to do with the Humans' mastery of technology.

Riax nodded his thanks to the Kayna for the compliment and paraphrased for Jalia. “Wes says you should expect more from Humans.”

The Junta raised an eye ridge and glanced at the much larger creature standing on the far side of Riax and the opposite side of their little semi-­circle, with the Cres in the middle. Had it been another race she might have offered a pithy comeback, but she wasn't going to do that with this one.

“How many of these hubs were originally in the system?” Marren asked.

“Thirteen. They need line of sight transmission, and the orbits of the planets and presence of the star can occasionally block transmissions, so it is essential to always keep at least one in position to receive external signals, which it can then relay to the others directly or on delay.”

The male Cres nodded. “Then this system is only partially on your grid?”

“True.”

“Bottom line,” Jalia commented after Ella finished translating, “you want to stay and find this outpost and scrounge whatever we can get from it?”

“Exactly,” Riax answered.

Jalia shrugged. “We haven't seen any trouble since the frigate. If you want to press our luck and stay around for a while, I'm game.”

The three Cres nodded their agreement, then Riax looked to the two Kayna, adding a telepathic warning of the risks to Ella's translation.

Wes and ‘Steve' both responded in a series of bark/growls punctuated by sharp whines. Riax got the telepathic gist of their statements, indicating that they were ready and eager to fight.

The Human's lips twisted into a wry grin and he turned back to the transmitter, activating the holographic display. A map of the system appeared, which he then scaled down to the gas giant and its six moons, highlighting the one with the Human outpost.

“Alright then, here's our destination. It was once called Deronisisti, now it's simply labeled as Davaris 4 . . . It was uninhabited back in the day, and is supposed to be devoid of any population or infrastructure now . . . The outpost is hidden underground, but has three surface entrances as of 16,000 years ago . . . I'm not sure how easy it will be to access. There may be some digging involved.”

“That will take time,” Jalia pointed out. “The mercs aren't going to leave us alone forever.”

“I know,” he agreed, “but the more I'm able to upgrade your ship, the better our chances of making it to Cres territory.”

Jalia smiled. “I do like the sound of that, but we might draw some unwanted attention from the locals if we start poking around a dead moon with no apparent cause.”

Riax shrugged. “They're leaving us alone for the moment, let's milk it while we've got it.”

Ella frowned and telepathically asked for a meaning of the cliché ‘milk it.' Riax explained it as ‘taking full advantage of an opportunity' and the Cres went on to translate to the others.

Jalia turned to the Cres. “Looks like me and my ship are really going to earn those credits after all.”

“Quite true,” Orrona answered her. “But I believe the risk is worth the gain if it facilitates the remainder of our journey.”

“Let's hope so,” Jalia said, backstepping away from the semi-­circle. “We best get moving now if we're going to maximize our chances. I have a feeling this system is going to fill up with mercs if we linger too long.”

Riax was left out of the loop for a moment and made a point to memorize the language text files as soon as possible and quit getting deflected by other projects. Jalia gave him a nod and left for the bridge, apparently eager to get underway.

“Will you want us to accompany you to the moon or remain here?” Marren asked.

“If we have to dig, I'll want you in the walkers . . . which I should probably make some adjustments to before we arrive,” he said, adding yet another item to his to-­do list. “According to the Mewlon information net, the moon is covered in jungle so we might have to ward off some predators. I'll want one of you to assist the Kayna with that.”

Ella translated for the Kayna and they growled approvingly.