Star Clusters: New Arrivals (19 page)

BOOK: Star Clusters: New Arrivals
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“No,” Hatos firmly told him. “I have one more task to complete. I cannot lead the fleet.”

“What will you do?”

“I will make one more attempt to improve our odds of victory. If it fails, it should have little effect on the battle. Now, let us see what else lies in wait for us, shall we?”

“Yes, of course. Open the hangar bay doors; take us out, maneuvering thrusters only,” he instructed one of the officers that had come with them - the acting helmsman of their new flagship. “What shall we call it?” he asked Hatos.

“I would leave that to the Council and my counterpart. Still, for the time being… perhaps ‘Baphal’ would be appropriate,” Hatos answered, suggesting an old Tarhedian word for ‘hope’. “It is, after all, precisely what its name suggests.”

“Indeed it is,” Kanet said as the ship emerged slowly but surely from its hangar. Something must have been triggered by its launching, though, for hundreds of other ships emerged from hidden hangars throughout the planet and the system’s asteroid field, rallying around the ship that brought the Tarhedians here. “Indeed it is...” he repeated silently, a smile starting to appear on his face.

*** Petran system, present day ***

“Petran forces,” Kanet started, “this is Kanet of the Tarhedian battlecruiser Baphal. On the behalf of my people, I apologize for the delay and hope that we have brought enough of a force to make up for it.”

“Of course you have!” Lanis happily told them from the Eagle, maintaining his composure just enough to respond to their message. “Just in time, too…”

Hatos was the next one to say anything that wasn’t the cheering they could hear from the other ships. “Calm yourselves - the battle is not over yet. We have to help Kanet’s forces however we can,” he told the Petran defenders.

Meanwhile, the newly obtained Tarhedian ships had opened fire on the Xargans, demonstrating an impressive array of plasma beam cannons while swarms of automated drone fighters slightly larger than swarmers launched from their hangars, each armed with a single neutron cannon with which to engage the Xargan swarmers. A small shuttle launched along with the Baphal’s drones, apparently headed towards the Xargan flagship.

“Disengage the hyperspace disruptor for a microjump towards the Tarhedian fleet,” Hatos ordered. “It is time to turn the tide.”

The disruptor powered down; the Tarhedia and the entire Petran fleet jumped towards the Xargans, flanking the somewhat weakened fleet as the Baphal’s shuttle carefully dodged enemy weapons fire on its way towards their flagship. “All units, engage at will. Lanis, Zeshaira, take a squadron of fighters and protect that shuttle,” Hatos said. “Captain Rotgen, please try to ensure the survival of the Baphal - I am most curious as to what explanation Kanet has to offer for its presence. I suspect I already know some of it, but it should be an interesting story nonetheless.”

“Understood. Piluams, Manev, form up on the Baphal. Concentrate on anti-fighter activity - looks like the Tarhedians can handle the rest.”

The Tarhedia powered up its main weapon, unleashing it into the front of the Xargan flagship with only moderate effect; the ship was both bigger and more heavily armored than its cousins, a breed formed solely for tasks like this. It was not invulnerable, though - and the materials required to form its thick outer shell are infrequently discovered by the Xargans, which is why it was not until the failed attempt to destroy Petra that it was unleashed upon the Petrans.

“Did that thing just shrug off--”

“Not entirely,” Hatos answered Lanis’ surprised question. “But I am just as surprised as you are. We will continue bombarding this mothership, but I fear it will take the full force of the fleet to bring it down should our primary weapon be disabled.”

“Alright, the shuttle’s almost there - we’ll double back and try to back you up.”

A few seconds later, the shuttle half-crashed in one of the flagship’s starboard hangars, lowering a ramp to release the Hatos from the previous timeline in a full AEA suit. After a few moments, he started pushing deeper into the ship. The Ivory Eagle and Zeshaira’s squadron turned around to engage a group of swarmers.

“Why do I have a feeling this is going to be close…?” Lanis commented as several of the Tarhedian warships were overpowered and destroyed.

“Would you have preferred certain doom?” Zeshaira pointed out.

“Good point!”

“Primary weapon has recharged; firing again. I expect this shot will penetrate the target’s outer hull.” Indeed, the orange beam pierced through the front of the Xargan flagship, damaging it somewhat before once again powering down.

Meanwhile, the Tarhedian forces were starting to lose ships and drones more rapidly as their shields grew weaker. The alternate Hatos, however, had arrived precisely where he wanted. “What are you doing here?” Lurvat asked when Hatos entered his chamber aboard the flagship.

“Turning your power against you,” he answered, mentally assaulting him just like he had been attacked on Daserus Three. Caught by surprise, the Xargan could do nothing as his connection to the hivemind - and that of the ship - was subverted, the messages they were receiving being twisted into a more favorable form before being retransmitted to the rest of the fleet. This had the immediate effect of turning the Xargans on each other.

“What are they doing?” Rotgen asked. “Why are they shooting each other?”

“I believe I know… quickly, everyone who is not controlling a fighter, a ship’s engines, or its weapons, help me,” this timeline’s Hatos ordered, joining his counterpart’s battle.

“You cannot win,” Lurvat told the alternate Hatos. “You know this, don’t you…?”

“I will do what must be done.
We
will do what must be done,” Hatos replied, feeling his fellow Tarhedians - including his counterpart on the Tarhedia - attempting to help him. “It does not need to last forever.”

“You will die on this ship, then. And you will teach us much in the process.”

“You are right; I will die. But you will learn nothing from it,” Hatos declared, triggering a bomb he had attached to the suit as soon as he felt his defenses failing. The entire chamber was consumed in an explosion, killing Lurvat once again. In the hangar Hatos had landed in, the shuttle’s power core overloaded, destroying the contents of the hangar - and the hangar itself. Outside, the Tarhedia fired its main weapon a third time, cutting through the middle of the massive mothership, damaging or outright obliterating several vital organs. Without the alternate Hatos focusing the connection, though, the efforts of the Tarhedians to turn the Xargans on each other were now useless.

Consequently, the badly wounded flagship turned its full attention - and that of whatever ships were still alive around it - on the ship that had brought it so close to death. “We are taking heavy fire!” Hatos - this timeline’s Hatos, that is - reported from the Tarhedia. “Our shields will not last much longer!”

“Disruptor station, power down - we have to let the Tarhedia jump to safety!” Rotgen ordered.

“Divert power from all non-critical systems - including weapons - to shields!” Hatos instructed his crew. Ultimately, it was enough; the Tarhedia jumped into hyperspace and out of the battle. Meanwhile, the Baphal and the rest of the Tarhedian fleet maneuvered into position around the hole in the flagship’s armor, firing all their weapons into it. With a final, devastating volley of plasma beams, the behemoth was melted from within, leaving nothing but a dead, useless shell. Reduced to about a thousand ships, the remaining Xargans turned away to jump into hyperspace; out of thousands of ships and tens of thousands of swarmers, only a few hundred would leave the Petran system.

The Tarhedian fleet, however, had also been greatly weakened - out of nearly seven hundred ships, over a hundred of them had been outright destroyed, and most of the others had been badly damaged. The Xargans had mostly focused on the warships discovered with the Baphal due to their overwhelming firepower, so the rest of the defending forces were fairly undamaged.

Finally, the tide had turned, and not a moment too soon…

Epilogue

Over the following days, the Xargans were driven out of Petran space, restoring the territorial status quo that had persisted since the Terran-Petran peace treaty. The Tarhedians were quick to dispatch scouts to their new homeworld to see if they could return; when the scouts discovered that the Xargans had never headed in that direction, preferring to focus on the Petran invasion, the colony was quickly resettled. Within days, all traces of their sudden departure had disappeared.

Although the attack on Aphis was not completely canceled, the force sent there was somewhat smaller than in the previous timeline. Because of this, the defense of Aphis was successful, and the Xargans never attacked and destroyed RS-7.

However, the discoveries of the past weeks would not be so easily forgotten. Hyperspace data provided by the Tarhedians now opened up the possibility of expansion for both the Terrans and Petrans, if the Tarhedians allowed it. The shapeshifting Xargan infiltrators had made a failed attempt to support their invasion from within, but what measures could be taken to prevent this from happening again? How could they know the extent of the infiltration or if it had been completely removed? And what secrets did the so-called ‘stranger’s key’ hold?

To answer these questions and several others, a diplomatic conference was held aboard the Tarhedia less than a week after the last battle of Petra, in the now-neutral Carthan system. Lanis, Barnes and Fanra had not left the ship since the battle, choosing to take a moment to admire the large cityship (and unsuccessfully try to figure out how to stop falling into the pond in the city’s park), learn about Tarhedian operational procedures and study Tarhedian technology, respectively.

By the time the diplomats started arriving, Lanis was looking into space from a balcony on one of the shield arms. As the ship continued its constant rotation, he saw the Orion dropping out of hyperspace nearby. “Nice view, isn’t it?” Fanra said.

Lanis turned around - he hadn’t noticed the Petran’s arrival until now. “It’s not bad. How long have you been here?”

“A minute or so. I needed a break.”

“Was it that, or did the Tarhedians refuse to let you take the ship apart?”

“Well, a little of both,” she admitted.

Lanis smiled at that. “Thought so. So, what are you going to do now that you’ve helped save the galaxy?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ve had enough adventures for a lifetime - I’ll probably find something on Petra and just stay put. Space travel, wars, always being one mistake away from death… I’m just not cut out for it.”

“Petra’s not really much safer. Look at what happened to Melraas - they leveled half of the city before Poteran intervened.”

“Maybe, but it’s home. Most of the time, I’d know exactly what can or can’t kill me.”

“You’re still sticking your head in the sand.”

Meanwhile, Hatos had come up to talk to them, and had overheard the conversation. “Not to mention the fact that it is a waste of your talent,” he added to Lanis’ statement. “However, that is not why I am here,” he told Lanis. “I may need some help during the conference. You know more about this region of space - and your peoples - than I do, and such information may be of use.”

“Sure, I’ll try to bring you up to speed.” He suddenly remembered something and smiled mischievously at the Tarhedian. “In exchange for telling me what made you so sure Petra was saved by time travel and who was on that shuttle?”

“Agreed. I should warn you, though, that some of it is pure speculation on my part.”

After a few hours, the Hippasrus dropped out of hyperspace. Meanwhile, Hatos had explained to Lanis and Fanra the same things his alternate counterpart had explained during the briefing on the alternate Sothar, instructing them to never tell anyone about it.

After a brief exchange of greetings between the various delegates, the conference began. Over the following hours, the delegates discussed how to divide the newly accessible area around the Tarhedian homeworld, defenses against repeated Xargan infiltration, and several other matters.

Ultimately, the Tarhedians decided to allow usage of what was essentially their territory in exchange for a portion of the resources obtained, considering it a better alternative than simply leaving the systems unused. The border between the United Systems and the Petran Empire would effectively be extended through Tarhedian territory, and the resources within divided equally between the two.

Measures against Xargan infiltrators, however, would be much simpler - and more complicated at the same time. For the moment, though, they were reasonably certain the infiltration had been dealt with. Until the Petran High Council could be replaced, the Empire would remain under the control of a provisional government assembled to handle the day-to-day operations of the entire Empire.

The stranger’s key was never thoroughly explained, as Hatos feared it could be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. Regardless, the Carthan system would become the home of a multi-species research station dedicated to learning more about the ancient facility on Cartha Three - a cooperation of unprecedented scale between the Terrans and Petrans. Similarly, the Tarhedians would share some of their less dangerous technology, such as their wormhole transporters, with the others.

Once the conference was finally finished, Fanra caught Lanis coming out of the conference room. “How did it go?”

“Not bad, I guess. It was a bit boring, though - politicians and all. What did you do?”

“I did a bit more research until Herrun showed up. Then we talked about where we’d be going from here.”

“And…?”

“I think he thinks Command is either going to leave him where he is or assign him to his own division or something like that,” she said.

“Did he say anything about fixing my cargo hold?”

“Not really, no.”

“Of
course
he didn’t… Oh well, at least I’ll have something new to do before life goes back to normal...”

“What about everyone else?”

“Beats me. I did overhear Admiral Jackson saying something about having to reorganize the Menlon militia for some reason, though…”

“At least the fighting’s over, I guess.”

“Not quite,” Lanis told her. “There’s still a lot of them out there, and they do recover from their losses faster than we do, remember? It’s a setback, sure, but in the long run… we’ve just delayed them.”

“So unless we figure out how to stop their attacks for good…”

“Yeah. It’ll never really be over.”

###

In spite of Lanis' remark, this
is
the end of the book. By now, you probably either liked it enough to read through it all, or hated it and went on out of an inexplicable desire for self-punishment. In either case, I'd appreciate it a lot if you took the time to leave a review on the book's page at the retailer you got it from. (Though a simple "I love/hate it so much!" would suffice, it would be much more helpful if you explained why you felt how you felt about it.)

 

Additionally, if you're interested in reading more about the Star Clusters universe, you can go to this website to see the latest news or find other titles:
http://dalolorn.com/starclusters

BOOK: Star Clusters: New Arrivals
9.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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