Star Clusters: New Arrivals (18 page)

*** Imperial Palace courtyard, Petra, present day ***

“Major Lurvat,” Poteran said, “I hear we have you and your men to thank for our survival.”

“I would not thank myself if I were you, Captain,” Lurvat told him, taking out a small remote control and pushing the button on it.

To his surprise, nothing happened. When he looked up into the sky, he realized that something
had
happened. Though this something was, in fact, precisely what he expected, it was in the wrong place.

*** Hyperspace bomb warehouse ***

“This is bad,” Fanra said. “I think I just figured out how they got the hyperspace window to destabilize the way it did…”

As if to add weight to her statement, the hyperdrive exploded. It was not a very big explosion; technically, it was the capacitors inside the warehouse that exploded, consuming their last bits of power to destroy everything inside the building, destabilizing the displaced hyperspace window in a carefully planned and highly destructive fashion. Fortunately, as there was no planet to be consumed, all that happened was the rearrangement of whatever particles had been floating in the empty space somewhere between Petra and its sun.

Back at the Palace, the guards that had accompanied the fleet’s captains raised their weapons at Lurvat. The captains did the same as quickly as they could unholster their pistols.

“Xargan, you are under arrest for conspiracy against the Petran government and people, impersonating an officer of the Imperial Petran Army, and willingly participating in mass murder through orbital bombardment,” Poteran stated in a formal tone, correctly assuming that there could be only one logical reason for Lurvat’s sudden betrayal.

“How can this be?!” Lurvat said. Both he and Woren - realizing the hopelessness of their situation - then transformed into one of the Xargan attack forms and attempted to attack Poteran before being brought down by a concentrated burst of weapons fire.

“What was that thing?” Rotgen asked, talking about the hyperspace window they saw.

“I don’t know,” Poteran answered, “but I think our ships’ sensors will have the answer to that. You and Boller will handle the cleanup while I try to piece this together.”

A few hours later, after Lossuh reported the bombardment of Melraas and the success of the attack on Petra to Hatos and the others, the Tarhedia was contacted by the Hippasrus. “Hatos, I wanted to deliver the news to you myself,” Poteran said. “It would seem that one of your crew was left behind when the Tarhedia left Petra; though we can’t identify the person in question, he or she may have played a vital role in thwarting a Xargan plot to destroy the planet. Whoever it was, they did not survive.”

“That is indeed good - and tragic - news. I shall see to it that they are identified and their relatives are informed of this as soon as possible,” Hatos told him. “Is there anything else?”

“As the head of the provisional government, I have formally requested assistance from the United Systems - with their current situation, though, it’s unlikely that it will arrive in time. But, I’ve been informed of your mission to Vaanle and have officially approved it. You shouldn’t encounter any resistance from our side. In fact, Jalno and I will be bringing some backup of our own now that we’re not fighting our own people anymore.”

“Excellent. If we are fortunate enough, there may be no need for an evacuation.”

“My thoughts exactly. Hippasrus out.” The holoviewer shut off.

“There wasn’t anyone left on Petra; I’d have found them,” Lanis pointed out.

“Indeed. The fact that there was a Tarhedian on Petra, and the only possible explanation for it tell me that our chances of success may have been drastically improved.”

“What do you mean?” Fanra asked.

“It involves time travel, and I believe I know by whom. Other than that, it is best that I do not tell you - if the information falls into the wrong hands, it could very well be the end of civilization as we know it. Regardless, the arrival of Tarhedian reinforcements is all but guaranteed now - I am certain of it. Now, let us prepare for the battle.”

A few hours later, the Hippasrus was torn out of hyperspace - to the great surprise of its captain - along with the full force of the fleet that had participated in the battle for Petra, regardless of the side they fought for. “Where did they get a hyperspace disruptor so quickly?” Poteran wondered. “Open a communications channel to the defense fleet.”

“Captain, it’s good to see you on our side for a change,” the officer in charge of the Vaanlean defense fleet said once the connection was established. “I hope you like our new defense mechanism.”

“I was just about to ask how you got it,” Poteran told him.

“We took a page out of your book. Instead of growing the entire station using one shipyard, we made several smaller modules using all of our shipyards and the last of our resources, then assembled it near the star. We’re establishing a perimeter at the edge of the field - the Xargans should be coming soon. Odds are we’ll be seeing some friendly ships making a run for it - there’s nothing we can do for the ships themselves, but we can get the crews off, test them to see if they’re Xargans, and send them off to Petra.”

“Alright, we’ll be at the perimeter shortly. We should expect the Tarhedia’s arrival within an hour - if we can hold them off that long, the evacuation may become pointless.”

“We should evacuate the system anyway, just in case something goes wrong,” Rotgen pointed out.

“Agreed. Stay alert, but don’t shoot our ships unless they shoot at us first.”

A while later, Poteran’s fleet arrived at the perimeter. As they moved into a defensive formation alongside the Vaanlean forces, a small group of heavily battered Petran ships of all sizes was torn out of hyperspace just beyond firing range. “This is Admiral Ladim of the Tlopis. We were overrun by the Xargans… there were simply too many of them. They’re right behind us - you have to help us!” the commanding officer of the largest ship in the group said upon establishing a connection with the fleet’s tacnet.

“Jalno, take a few ships and see if you can do anything. Admiral, head to the station at the coordinates I’m sending you - they’ll know what to do.”

The Soscut and a few smaller craft - as well as their fighter complements - maneuvered to escort the remnants of Ladim’s fleet as the Xargans were forced to emerge from hyperspace. Before the Xargans could act, the defenders opened fire; the small scout force was obliterated, but a larger force had been following closely behind.

“We’re taking fire - shields are down to ninety percent,” Rotgen said as the Xargan weapons impacted the Soscut. “This operation isn’t off to a great start…”

“It could be worse,” Poteran told him. “Just hold them at bay for now, let the Tlopis get behind the perimeter. No heroics.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it; if I went down, who would you compete with?”

“No one, I’d have won. Piluams, Manev, try hitting the Xargan left flank, see if you can’t get some attention.”

“Understood, Piluams commencing attack run.”

As the Tlopis’ fleet moved closer to the Petran perimeter, the Piluams and the Meerte Manev made a high-speed maneuver across the Xargans’ left flank, bombarding targets of opportunity and turning back to return into their formation. Unfortunately, very little attention was to be had as the Xargans kept pushing forward.

“I’m beginning to wish we had some decent turrets… All remaining ships, fire at will. Take evasive action as you see fit, but do not let the Xargans deeper into the system unless ordered otherwise.”

The Tlopis moved past the defenders - the Soscut moved back into its position, and as the Xargans approached, both forces degenerated into a mess as they broke formation and started maneuvering at will.

“I don’t think we can hold them much longer,” Rotgen observed.

“We have to do our best, Jalno. These people depend on it.”

“I know, I’m just saying we won’t last too long at this rate. We’re going to start losing ships pretty soon.”

“Alright, make a controlled withdrawal to the first orbital radius,” Poteran ordered. “Keep firing all available weapons. All ships with over a hundred unused high-yield missiles, improvise minelayer modules containing twenty missiles, optimized for maximum coverage and stealth, respectively.”

“Do it,” Rotgen told one of his officers. “What are you thinking? Homing mines?” he asked as the fleet broke off and attempted to withdraw deeper into the system.

“More or less. If they don’t see them, they’ll ram into them. If they do see them, and I’m guessing they will, they’ll have a hard time safely getting around - or detonating them.”

“We won’t be able to launch them during this transition, though,” Boller noted.

“I know. When we retreat into the next orbit, we’ll launch.”

“It’s a good thing most of the planets we’re trying to protect are on the other side of the system...” Rotgen mused.

The fleet - with the exception of whatever ships had virtually no shields remaining - moved into a location on the orbital path of the planet farthest from the system’s star. Although the smaller Xargans were quite capable of keeping up, they opted for the safer - albeit somewhat slower - approach of maintaining a cohesive formation. Some five minutes later, the two fleets clashed again.

“So, fifteen minutes and a quarter of our fleet later… Kellas, I hope those mines of yours work, because not only are we losing ships--”

“But we’re also not making the Xargans lose enough of theirs, I know,” Poteran finished Rotgen’s sentence, marking around two fifths of the remainder of their forces on the tacnet. “When we pull back, you and Boller will each take one of these groups out and behind the Xargans’ left and right flanks, respectively. Cut off the flow of reinforcements as well as you can, but if the main group breaks off to stop you, don’t let them catch you.”

“There’s still too many of them already here - you’ll be destroyed!” Boller told him.

“Not if you and the mines do your jobs right. Even if it fails, we hardly have any options left.”

“Shields are down to fifty percent!” the Hippasrus’ tactical officer reported. “Several ships are losing shields and breaking formation.”

“I think it’s time for us to do the same. Regroup in the second orbit, start launching mines when we’re one light second away from the Xargans. Green and blue groups, you know what to do.”

As planned, Rotgen and Boller broke off from the main group, attempting to move behind the Xargan lines. The Xargans kept pushing on, attempting to overpower the defenders as quickly as possible; clearly, they were in a hurry. Unfortunately for them, their attempts at maintaining cohesion allowed Poteran’s forces to reach the required distance long before they arrived at their destination. Consequently, around two hundred high-yield missiles had been dropped in the Xargan fleet’s path, powering up as soon they were detected and heading towards the larger Xargans.

Despite the fact that they were being fired upon, not all of the improvised ‘mines’ were destroyed. “Several targets destroyed or crippled, numerous swarmer casualties,” the Hippasrus’ tactical officer reported when the last missile was destroyed. “Some of the ships closer to the explosions have been moderately damaged - enemy fleet effectiveness may have been reduced up to fifteen percent.”

“Let’s hope that’ll be enough,” Poteran told him. “Stay on course, recall any damaged fighters for emergency repairs - make sure they’re all launched again by the time we enter the second orbit.”

“Piluams has finished moving into position. Soscut, I recommend we attack the same location simultaneously.”

“We’re ready to engage, Piluams.”

“In that case… Commencing attack.”

The two groups led by the Piluams and the Soscut suddenly started moving at full speed towards the imaginary line that was the flow of Xargan reinforcements to the main group.

Chapter 13

Endgame

Roughly thirty-five minutes after the Petrans attempted to cut off the Xargan reinforcements, the Tarhedia was torn out of hyperspace to witness them retreating towards the inhabited planet closest to the Xargans.

“It would seem we have not arrived a moment too soon,” Hatos noted. As they did in the previous timeline, the Eagle and all the fighters the Tarhedia’s crew could man sped out of the ship’s hangars, and several bombs were beamed into strategic locations to weaken the Xargan fleet.

“We are being hailed,” the Tarhedia’s comm officer reported as the bombs detonated, destroying several large Xargans. This also had the unintended side effect of outright vaporizing Lurvat, preventing him from requesting their surrender like he did in the previous timeline.

“Put them through and link them to the tactical network.”

The holoviewer quickly changed to display the bridge of the Hippasrus. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Poteran jokingly commented. “Great timing.”

“We could always leave and pretend we weren’t coming, if you would prefer that,” Hatos answered, trying as hard as he could to look as if he had taken the Petran’s comment seriously.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Poteran hastily told him; his point was reinforced by his tactical officer reporting that the ship’s shields were down to ten percent. “We’ve managed to evacuate most of this planet’s population, but there are still a few transports on the surface. We’ll cut power to the hyperspace disruptor for a few moments; you’ll only have a brief window of opportunity to jump to our location, so you should sync up to our tacnet and recall your fighters.”

“Very well,” Hatos said, and the Tarhedian fighters turned around and headed towards their mothership. “We should be ready in a minute or two.”

The Eagle also turned away - Lanis had decided to use the Tarhedia’s hangars instead of risking missing the chance to jump to the Petrans. “All fighters have returned to the ship. We are ready to perform the jump,” Hatos said as the last fighters entered the hangar a few minutes later.

“Disabling disruptor in three… two… one… Now!” Poteran told him. With the disruptor field deactivated, the Tarhedia jumped into hyperspace, reappearing with all guns blazing a couple of seconds later near the Petran fleet as the field was restored. The superheated plasma from the ship’s weapons melted large chunks out of the larger Xargan ships while the Petrans focused on the rest of the fleet; naturally, their fighters engaged the swarmers. Within minutes, the Xargans were retreating and being pursued by the enemy they had come to destroy.

However, it was not to last. A massive Xargan fleet began emerging from - not being forced out of - hyperspace near the edge of the system, just beyond the hyperspace disruptor’s range.

“There must be
thousands
of them!” Rotgen said, watching in awe as more ships kept joining the swarm. “Did they bring their whole species?!”

“Even with the Tarhedia’s weapons, this is not a battle we can win. We must retreat,” Hatos told Poteran.

“You’re right,” Poteran answered. “All ships, take whatever station modules you can and prepare to jump to Petra. Soscut, take a few ships and head to the hyperspace disruptor to pick it up.

“That might not be an option,” Lanis said. “Some of those ships are interdictors - if they decide to turn on their disruptors, we’ll be stuck.”

“Transport bombs to all the interdictors,” Hatos quickly ordered. “This does not look promising...”

After a brief pause, some of the interdictors started exploding. “Why aren’t they all blowing up?” Poteran asked.

“I do not know,” Hatos answered.

“The remaining Xargans are emitting some sort of interference; it is scattering the transporter’s targeting beam, as if though they were shielded.” one of the Tarhedian officers told him.

“It would seem this is yet another example of Xargan adaptability. I am generally not an impatient person, but I believe it would be wise to make an exception here.”

“We’re almost ready,” Rotgen told him. “Estimated time to field deactivation: thirty seconds.”

“Let’s hope they want us to leave…” Lanis said to himself. Some thirty seconds later, the fleet started jumping towards Petra. Within moments, the hyperspace disruptor was completely dismantled and towed into hyperspace by the Soscut and its accompanying ships as more Xargans kept emerging from hyperspace.

A couple of hours later, the Tarhedia and the Petran fleet emerged from hyperspace into a stable orbit around Petra. The Petran officers met with Hatos and the others in the Tarhedia’s briefing room to discuss what to do.

“The Xargans will be here soon - fifteen to thirty minutes at most, more if they stay to fortify Vaanle before moving on - so we’d better make this quick,” Poteran started. “The hyperspace disruptor from Vaanle is in perfect condition, so we’ll have that going for us. But…”

“There’s simply too many of them,” Lanis finished. “At this point, I think a desperate last stand is the only thing we can do. That or give up, but I can’t see that working out for us. I mean, we
could
run, but we wouldn’t get too far before we broke our hyperdrives trying to get out of our little pocket of space.”

“How did you even get out of your cluster?” Fanra asked the Tarhedians.

“The same way you presumably reached Cartha. Persistence and patience - we’d send probes to nearby systems to search for resources and interesting anomalies - this is how we first discovered these natural barriers as the probes were immobilized. Over time the data from the probes would be sufficient for us to find out how to configure our hyperdrives. That or we would stumble upon the correct configuration, causing one of the probes to successfully pass. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to pursue either option, and the Xargans would likely do it faster,” Hatos told her.

“Not to mention that we don’t exactly have a fleet of fast interstellar arks lying around,” Lanis commented.

“Hold on. Those probes have hyperdrives. I’m guessing they also have jump capacitors?” Poteran asked Hatos.

“Yes,” he confusedly answered.

“How many do you have onboard?”

“Around twenty of them. If you are contemplating what I believe you are contemplating… It could work. However, the probes are far too fragile to survive anything beyond close-range insertion - whoever launched them would not be coming back.”

“We could always drop them right where the Xargans are expected to come out of hyperspace,” Barnes proposed - as the Arcamil had not yet formally revealed themselves in this timeline, he had joined the meeting posing as a Terran they picked up during their travels.

“No, that wouldn’t catch as many ships as we need, and they might not bring all of them in one go,” Fanra told him.

“Then we’ll rig up a ship to be run by as few people as possible,” Poteran suggested. “Take it straight into the Xargan formation and launch the probes, overload the hyperdrives, and see what’s left.”

“We might be able to route all vital functions to the bridge - one person should be enough,” Fanra explained, “but that’s the best we can do with the amount of time we’ve got. Remote control would be too risky, and there’s not enough time to overhaul the ship’s computers and configure it to time its launch correctly.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Poteran said. “I know how Petran ships work, and I’m not going to order anyone to sacrifice themselves. I’m my only option.”

“Wait a minute, can’t we jump the probes into position instead?” Lanis asked. “Put them outside the system and all that?”

“Actually, that could work - the Xargans came out of hyperspace just beyond the disruptor’s range at Vaanle, they’ll probably be busy organizing their armada long enough for the probes to jump in,” Barnes noted. “And if they turn on their interdictors’ hyperspace disruptors, our sensors will detect it, and we’ll have the option of going with the kamikaze plan.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. As for the rest, I think we’ll have to make it up on the spot, as usual,” Poteran concluded. “Let’s get to work.”

As expected, the Xargan vanguard arrived at the edge of the Petran system some twenty minutes after the briefing; presumably sent to discover the edge of the disruptor field, they chose to hold their ground until the main fleet arrived. This, however, could only last for so long, and several minutes later, the rest of the armada started emerging.

“Now?” Poteran asked.

“Not yet - we should know when they’ve all arrived; they should decide to attack,” Fanra told him. Still, she was worried - if the Xargans didn’t wait for all their forces, they would detonate the probes too soon. Ultimately, when their ships stopped emerging from hyperspace, the massive Xargan force started moving into the system. “Now! Send the probes!”

Ten of the Tarhedian probes rapidly emerged from the left side of the Petran frigate selected for the operation, correcting their course before jumping into hyperspace. A second later, they were forced out of hyperspace as they reached the edge of the hyperspace disruption field; before the Xargans could react, the probes exploded in a violent explosion as their hyperdrives were deliberately overloaded. “Casualties?” Poteran asked.

“Looks like we got a few hundred of them - mostly medium and small ones, but a few of the bigger motherships went down too. I think the swarmer casualties can be measured in the thousands, though.”

“So, not quite as much as we hoped.” He sighed. They were still hopelessly outnumbered. “All units, prepare to engage the enemy. I’ll launch my last probes and move in. Give me the coordinates where I’ll do the most damage.”

“One moment,” Fanra said. Meanwhile, another ten probes were launched from the frigate’s right side and did the same thing as the first group with roughly the same results. “Hold on… I’m picking up more hyperspace windows opening. Lots of them.”

“More reinforcements, no doubt,” Rotgen said.

“Well, they sort of are… but they’re not Xargans!”

Several hundred Tarhedian ships - some of them were the ones that fought in the previous timeline’s battle for Tanopas - and a few similar ships that had stayed behind, but most of them were more standardized and built for combat - emerged from hyperspace, immediately attracting the attention of the Xargan armada.

*** Somewhere near the Tarhedian homeworld, some time ago ***

The ship emerged from hyperspace in a small, fairly ordinary star system. The data module indicated that there would be a fleet hidden on the fifth planet in this system; however, the Tarhedians’ sensors could not see anything.

“There appears to be nothing here,” Kanet said.

“It will be here,” the Hatos from the previous timeline told him. “I am certain of it. Prepare to transport a small group to the coordinates provided in the module.”

A few minutes later, several Tarhedians, including Kanet and Hatos, beamed down to the planet surface and spread out. Kanet was the first one to find something in the thick, seemingly featureless fog.

“Over here,” he said. “I believe I have found it.” The rest of the team went towards him, seeing a small transporter platform of Tarhedian design. “Who could have built this? No Tarhedian has ever--”

“No Tarhedian, indeed - look!” Hatos told him, pointing towards a few scattered bone fragments nearby. “It would seem Lanis did not perform this undertaking alone - those are Terran bones.”

“But where is the rest of the skeleton?”

“These bones appear to have been broken posthumously. Possibly to be repurposed by the constructors of this platform; I do not believe the fleet we seek was constructed by living beings.”

“Construction drones?”

“What else?” Hatos simply returned, activating the transporter. Suddenly, the away team found themselves in a massive underground hangar, in front of a battlecruiser slightly larger than the Orion. “Astonishing,” he said after a few moments.

“This cruiser is an entire fleet?”

“Perhaps the rest of the fleet is hidden elsewhere in the system. For that purpose, this is a perfect system - the local asteroid field is dense, stable and full of various sensor-dampening minerals. Look, one of the drones is here to meet us.”

The construction drone Hatos was referring to slowly hovered over to the group, displaying the insignia of the Tarhedian Empire on its side as it came closer. “Warships constructed for
us
by the
Empire
?” Kanet confusedly said.

“An obvious choice - our drones were not an option because using our resources to construct the fleet would have a greater historical impact. Now it is all starting to make sense…”

The drone buzzed and beeped something in its simplified language; lacking a proper vocabulator, this was its only means of communication. “Come this way,” it told them.

A few minutes later, they found themselves on the bridge of the ship; it was clear from its construction that the craft was intended to be nearly fully automated. “I believe it is time to depart,” Hatos said. “Kanet, I believe this is your place,” he added, pointing at the command chair. “After all, you will command the fleet.”

Kanet looked confusedly at Hatos. “Command the fleet? I thought you would--”