Talosian Chronicles 5: Raptor Squadron (10 page)

Glamia nodded. "Yes Master."

Shalo had finished the report he was working on and had begun reading the next when he was interrupted by several alarms going off on Glamia's terminal. She had already silenced them and was typing furiously by the time he asked her what was going on.

"Master, the Grimaria system is under attack, could this be what his Imperial Majesty was trying to warn you about?" she replied.

"Perhaps. How many ships did the Alliance send?" Shalo asked. "Let me see a battle plot."

"Uh," Glamia said. "Master, no ships are detected within the system. No enemy presence at all has been detected. However, the Guardian fleet has been destroyed. All ship facilities in orbit of the planet are reporting heavy damage." She replied, but sounded confused. "How can there be this much damage if there is no enemy presence? For that matter, how did they get this close without us detecting them?"

The image Shalo had asked for appeared in the center of the room, but as she had said, no enemy forces were displayed, only the remnants of the fleet that had been there and the damaged stations.

"Could this have been something natural?" Shalo asked himself outloud. "No, the ships were shielded from those and we would have had some warning." He looked up at Glamia. "Was there any weapons fire detected?"

She scanned back through the report. "No, Master. The report only says that all the ships simply blew up, all at the same time. The base commander brought the base to red alert because he could think of no other reason for that much destruction to happen that quickly. He has ordered our fighter craft to search for survivors and to investigate the event."

Shalo nodded. "Maintain contact. I want to know exactly what's going on in that system immediately. Have there been any reports of activity near the Gates?"

"No, Master," She replied after making a quick inquiry. "The fleet commanders report all has been quiet, and they are on schedule for the next attacks."

Shalo nodded to her, thoughtfully. "Tell them to delay the attacks and to send a squadron of light cruisers back to the base to assist with the investigation."

"Yes Master, the Lord Commander is also calling you back; do you wish for me to put him through?" Glamia asked.

"Yes, right away," Shalo replied, as the image of a different man took form. With a start, Shalo realized this was one of the priests, and he bowed. "Revered Father, to what do I owe the honor?"

"This matter concerns his Imperial Majesty. He is very distraught, and we can make little of his words. Confronting the Gods has a very unsettling effect on the mind. Language is one of the areas most affected. When he speaks, it is to us little more than gibberish, but as his mind returns from the encounter, coherent words become mixed in but are still disjointed and not understandable," the Priest explained. "We are working with him to help his mind return to us with the messages of the Gods intact. However, it has become evident that something of import was revealed to him. He has been trying to get that out to us since he returned. His words to this point have been in an ancient dialect that we have had to interpret. That is where some of the difficulty lies. The words he has spoken refer to a revenant or undead ghosts, invisible dangers, and death of worlds or Empire. It is somewhat unclear and imprecise."

Shalo had gone a little pale. "Revered Father, I have just received a report from Grimaria. All of our space assets there have been destroyed or heavily damaged. However, there is no sign of the enemy. No hostile action was detected at all," Shalo replied. "Could that be to what he was referring?"

"I do not know, My Lord. It could be that is indeed what he was speaking of, or it could be the poor weather patterns in the southern hemisphere of the planet. At this point, we simply cannot tell for certain. It is for that reason we do not let the lay person listen to the words. I would mention that two of my brothers sought the answers His Majesty needed before this. They are both now little more than mindless: we record everything they say, but as yet, they have not said anything we can understand," the Priest replied. "We advised His Majesty that this was too dangerous to pursue, but he was adamant that he be allowed to try."

"Will his Majesty recover?" Shalo asked with real concern.

The Revered Father smiled slightly at his concern. "So far, the signs are good that he will. He has a stronger mind than our two brothers had, due to less contact with the Gods. It will take time and we will care for him."

Shalo nodded. "I understand, Revered Father. I accept your words in the spirit given. I will proceed cautiously, and in the best interests of the Empire."

"Of that, we have little doubt, Lord Shalo. May the Gods guide your path, temper your heart and keep you from harm," the Revered Father spoke. That was their standard words of departure.

Shalo bowed as if receiving them as an invocation as the image faded from view. He remained silent for a few moments to consider what was, and what was not said.

"Master?" Glamia asked softly.

"Arm the demolition charges on the gates and have the fleets retreat to a safe distance and hold position. I want hourly reports from the investigation of the destruction of those ships and I want to know immediately if anything else happens, no matter how strange or seemingly irrelevant," Shalo ordered.

"Yes Master," Glamia replied.

Raptor
Apache

Grimaria System

Failspire Sector, Imperial Occupied Space

Major Jana Cromwell, Commanding

"I don't get it, we blow their ships up and damage the ship yards, and they send in more light cruisers?" Rat paused. "I think we failed to panic them."

"No, we only confused them because they can't see us; they don't know what happened, but they are not sure it was a hostile action," Jana explained. "Now we blow the facilities on the moons while we pound the planet."

"We still have some time before the Admiral is in position at Hyperion, Jana. Why don't we play with them some more?" Thomas suggested. "We plant charges on the new ships and maybe plant some charges down on the planet in certain places, then just sit back and wait a couple of days? The more damage we can do to them while we have the time, the better."

"I understand and agree, Thomas, but we need to get the bigger ships back here so we can get to our real job of destroying those damn gates," Jana said.

"I think we may accomplish that mission anyway, Major," Gouyen, the
Apache
AI, replied. "When the fleets at the gates withdrew, we detected a new signal from the gates that could be a self-destruct charge. Perhaps the local commanders are under orders to ensure the gate technology does not fall into Alliance hands under any circumstances."

Jana looked thoughtful. "So in order to destroy the gates, all we would need to do is get close enough to scan them and make sure the enemy sees that we are?"

"The act of getting close enough for a detailed scan would ensure we are seen. The problem is that the entire Imperial attack force is also at that location. So we are back to the original problem of drawing them off," Gouyen explained.

"Perhaps it would be good enough just to let them know we are here. If they do have orders to destroy the gates to prevent us from getting the tech, it would seem to me that finding enemies within a light year of the device would justify destroying them as a precaution. Equipment can always be rebuilt," Carl replied sensibly. "We have five more days before the Admiral arrives at Hyperion. We should use that time to set up as much sabotage as we can, try to get AM charges on the larger ships, and then allow our presence to become known and see what happens. In that way, we should be covered from all angles."

Jana nodded her agreement as did the other commanders.

It was the start of a very bad week for the Imperial forces at Grimaria. The industrial facilities on the moons were gone. Several hundred fighters had been destroyed on the ground. A hundred and fifty-two major munitions and supply centers, armories, and heavy armor vehicle depots were now smoking craters.  Through it all, the Imperial forces never detected a single weapon being fired, or any evidence of an enemy presence in the system at all. However, no other explanation remained to them.

Acting on orders from Lord Shalo, the fleets stationed at the gates sent in their heavy assault ships for a detailed, high resolution scan of the entire star system. By that time, it was getting close to the Hyperion deadline; Ian and the fleet would be arriving in a few hours to begin their own scans of the Hyperion system. Once that was finished, the attack would be on.

The Raptor teams, feeling that time was running out, planted the heavy charges on the capitol ships as soon as they arrived in system. During the seeding of explosives on the moon installations, the Raptors
Gotham
and
Dynasty
also installed very sophisticated 'listening' posts hidden some distance from anything else on the moon. Those devices would allow the Alliance to monitor what happened in this system in close to real time. The other Raptors left small, specialized drones at the ship yard facilities that would attempt to integrate themselves into the facilities during repairs. They would hack into the Imperial data and communications nets allowing more intelligence to be gathered.

The Raptors received the attack signal shortly after the Imperial ships began scanning the Grimaria system. Their time had run out.

"Okay boys and girls, it's time to drop our pants and moon 'em!" Rat said.

Jana laughed at him. "Yes it is, Rat. As we agreed, all Raptors, detonate our final presents and jump for the Gate devices!"

On the planet, several of the almost city-sized Imperial Marine bases began exploding as charges planted there began to detonate in a predetermined pattern. As one, all six Raptors engaged their jump engines and disappeared in a flash.

Palace of Imperial Enlightenment

Onalau City

Planet Proferus Three

Orgatan System, Gar Sector

"Master, the Grimaria ships are beginning their scans of the inner system, they should be complete…" Glamia was interrupted by another alarm going off on her terminal. She silenced it as she accessed the emergency message.

"The Hyperion system is under attack by Alliance forces. It is believed that the force is two to three ships, but sensors are having a hard time locking in on them. The Governor there has initiated martial law."

"This is an odd time for an Alliance assault on an uncontested world," Shalo replied. "What do we have there to defend them?"

"Only two light cruisers, a division of garrison troops and a squadron of older fighter craft. As you said, Sir, this world has been uncontested and far from the war for some years. Uh, it's also a former Talosian colony, My Lord. It has a
human
population," Glamia replied, urgently.

She no more then finished saying that when yet another chime sounded on her terminal. "My Lord, our forces at Grimaria have detected six enemy ships in the system. No identification or classification was possible as they were detected by their hyper jump signature as they departed. Master, this can't be a coincidence!"

Glamia made sure to manipulate the displayed holograms so her Lord could see all the information she had as she received it.

"The Alliance has never taken back a world from us, but if we do nothing at Hyperion, they will. The presence of Alliance ships at Grimaria threatens the security of the gates." He paused while thinking hard.

"Have the thirteenth assault fleet reassemble and gate to Hyperion immediately. Once they are clear, destroy the gates. The rest of the fleets at Grimaria are to locate and destroy the enemy ships as quickly as possible. Do we have a track on the ships that jumped from Grimaria?" Shalo asked.

She typed and got her answers. "Yes Master, they are heading for the gate devices. However, they cannot drop out of hyperspace close enough for a detailed scan. They will have to arrive in the midst of our current forces on location. Also the speed indicated by our sensors would show them to be smaller, Centurian class ships."

Shalo nodded. "Get them moving, Glamia, we're fighting the clock here. Those ships cannot be allowed to scan those gates."

"Orders sent, Master. Our commanders have anticipated your orders and had already begun acting on them. They had already begun moving to safe jump locations. The thirteenth has begun moving back to the gates and the capitol ships will make rendezvous at the gates. They should be able to depart in twenty minutes.

"The rest of the fleets are reassembling and preparing for the arrival of the enemy ships. They will not escape us, Master," Glamia said confidently.

"Glamia, they have spent the last week systematically laying waste to the base at Grimaria. They had to know the location of those gates. So why didn't they make a move on them sooner?" Shalo asked.

"Because of the Gates' location, there was no way even a cloaked ship could get within scanning range of the gates undetected. To attempt such a thing would be suicide. Perhaps their mission was to destroy the parts of this operation that they could reach, which would be the base at Grimaria. By doing so, they would cripple our efforts much as they have done. What we are seeing now is a last ditch, desperate attempt to get viable data on the gates before they are destroyed. Perhaps they believe they can get close enough to destroy them with missiles," Glamia replied.

Shalo looked thoughtful as he considered her words. "You may very well be correct, Glamia. However, I do not agree with you on the last assumption. Alliance forces do not engage in suicidal missions. There is something here we are not seeing, but for the life of me, I have no idea what it could be." Again he paused in thought. "What is the timing here? When will the enemy ships arrive near our fleets, and how close to that will the thirteenth gate out?"