The Seryys Chronicles: Of Nightmares Page 25

  “We do,” Khai offered plainly.

  “A valid point,” Sibrex admitted. “However, I know you well enough to know that this bothers you as it does me.”

  “It does, Sibrex,” Khai said candidly. “It does a lot. I don’t like keeping secrets from friends.”

  “Indeed. You are good man, Khai. You represent your people well. Chuumdar sees that in you.”

  “Are you sure he does?” Khai asked skeptically.

  “He has confided in me on numerous occasions. He simply doesn’t trust Prime Minister Puar or his administration.”

  “Can’t say as I blame him, there,” Khai admitted. “He has every reason not to trust any of us.”

  “He wishes peace between our people.”

  “I believe it.”

  “But he does not feel that your people as a whole wish it,” Sibrex added.

  “There are a lot of people who don’t,” Khai agreed. “But the general population will follow their leaders if they set a good example. Puar is one of those men. I’ve fought and bled with the man. His heart is in the right place.”

  “Khai?” the Splitter’s computer interrupted. “Pardon the intrusion.”

  “It’s okay, Joon. What’s the problem?”

  “Admiral Weller has been trying to reach you. I have been blocking his transmission that you might finish your… heart-to-heart with Sibrex.”

  Khai loved the sassy attitude his computer had. It reminded him even more of Joon, though Dah named the computer long before they had even met.

  “Go ahead and send him through, Joon.”

  “As you wish.”

  The screen blinked on and was filled with the aged face of Admiral Weller. “Khail, how much longer will you be playing in there?”

  “It takes time, Admiral. Even with Tander’s flight path input into our computer, Joon still needs to make minor adjustments to the path. Even since his flight through here, asteroids have shifted—some a little, some a lot. Joon is transmitting the data to the Bucket, which is compiling the information and projecting new coordinates which will be fed to your navigational computers within the hour. The last thing we need is one of your dreadnoughts meeting an untimely demise in here.”

  “Very well, General. Keep me posted on your progress.”

  “Will do. Khail, out.”

  “What’s up his butt?” Puar asked from the Bucket.

  “He’s just doing his job, Puar,” Khai admonished. “When you’re responsible for over thirty thousand lives, you get a little jumpy when flying into the unknown. Give him a break.”

  “Fine,” Puar resigned. “I was mostly joking anyway. Didn’t realize I was flying with a bunch of sticks in the mud.”

  Sibrex shot Khai a quizzical look and mouthed, sticks in the mud? Khai shook his head and waved a dismissive hand.

  “Just want to get this pickup done and over with so I can go home and see my wife. Is the Bucket ready to start transmitting flight plans for the engineering teams yet?”

  “I think so,” Dah responded. “The computer is running one last simulation and then we should be ready to transmit.”

  “Good,” Khai said. “As soon as it’s ready, send it. Let’s get those teams in there as quickly as possible. We can send them live feeds as they get farther in. That way they can get started sooner.”

  “Roger that, Khai.”

  Another hour passed and the Splitter entered a clearing. There it was! A huge station hung at its center, slowly spinning on its Y axis. Fifty ships sat around it, powered down but intact.

  “Oh wow!” Puar breathed over the channel.

  “Indeed,” Sibrex said, equally impressed.

  The Splitter streaked through voids between ships, surveying the area with her sensors. They caught glimpses of ship names as the moved through.

  “Hope, Dauntless, Osiris, Zeus, Atlantis,” Khai read as they flew by. “The list goes on and…”

  Khai stopped in mid-sentence and brought the ship to a halt.

  “What’s wrong?” Dah asked from the Bucket.

  “Are you seeing this?” Khai asked as he brought his ship nose to nose with one of the ancient cruisers in the void. “Joon, put a spotlight on the bow of that boat.”

  The spotlight popped on and illuminated the bow. Scribed into the starboard side of the bow was the name of a ship that was ominously familiar.

  “Oh! Tell me I’m dreaming!” Puar said.

  “You don’t think…” Brix’s voice left the question open-ended.

  “It stands to reason,” Sibrex offered. “The spelling is quite similar.”

  Two words etched into the side of an ancient ship had just left them all speechless: Cerys II. If they followed Seryys Maritime tradition, a ship’s name was followed by “II” if the first was destroyed or lost at sea (or in this case, in space) as a way to honor the crew of the previous ship.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Khai said very ceremonially. “I think the questions of our origins have just been answered! Joon, take a snapshot of the bow of that ship for the archives on Seryys and transmit it to the Pride. There are probably a million scholars that would love to get their hands on that!”

  “General Khail,” a female voice came over the speakers. “This is Lieutenant Duur, Lead engineer. We are on shuttle one and progressing quickly. If you’re done sightseeing, we would like you to clear the main hangar on the station as quickly as possible... sir.”

  “Roger that, Lieutenant,” Khai shot back. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m about to make you care just a little less about your time table.”

  “Transmission complete,” Joon’s voice sounded in the cockpit.

  “What am I looking at—oh! That can’t be…”

  “Sir,” an older man from the communications console chimed. “We’re getting a transmission from the Star Splitter, marked high priority.”

  “Put him on,” Weller ordered, turning to face the main view and folding his arms.

  “Sir, it’s not a video or audio feed, it’s a single file. It looks like a…picture?”

  Weller twisted around to look at the officer and unfolded his arms. “Put it up on the main viewer, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The high-res picture popped up on the screen and for few confused seconds, everyone just stared at the screen trying to figure out what they were looking at. At first Weller was annoyed that Khai would waste his time with something as silly as sending a picture of a random ship. But once he saw the name, he understood.

  “Sir?” It was his tactical officer, but he was still too enamored with the implications of Khai’s seemingly silly picture to hear him.

  “Sir?” He tried again with no response. “Sir!” he shouted, snapping Weller out of his trance.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “I’m getting some weird readings ahead of us,” he reported.

  “Define ‘weird,’ son,” Weller ordered with a frown.

  “I…I don’t know. There is an anomalous energy spike emanating from the space dead ahead.”

  Weller straightened to his full height and started barking orders. “Tactical, move the Protectors into position and get our shields up! We’re not taking any chances out here! Gunners, ready your systems and start picking asteroids near the anomaly. Fire on my mark, not a millisecond before! Engineering, get damage control teams assembled!”

  He got affirming nods from all of his officers.

  They waited.

  Suddenly, dark, wispy matter began to coalesce into a single point of true black. That block dot expanded rapidly and flashed, sending a wave of iridescent energy that lightly buffeted the ships in its wake and from the center appeared six ships of gargantuan size.

  There was a collective stunned silence on the bridge as jaws dropped and eyes widened.

  “By the founders!” Admiral Weller whispered.

  The ships were black, almost as black as the space from which they had emerged, dotted with white points of light. They were
impossibly difficult to see clearly, but they appeared to be long, tall and rectangular with slightly rounded edges. Four huge engines sat mounted onto wings that curved forward. Along the port, starboard and dorsal sides of the ships, there were sets of spines slanted back toward the stern, or were they antennae? Weller wondered. Off the ventral side of the bow were what appeared to be mandibles of some kind, possibly gun emplacements? Again, the details were hard to distinguish with their flat black hull plating.

  The communications officer chimed in saying they were being hailed.

  “Well?” Weller looked expectantly at the older man sitting at the com console. “Answer it!”

  The older man punched a couple keys and the channel was open. At first there was nothing, just darkness, then a figure began to emerge. The first things Weller could make out were pointed ears atop the skull that seemed to flicker from side to side. As the figure leaned forward, the rest of the thing’s features became illuminated. The creature was an imposing, thick-necked, furry animal, not unlike the Grature Hounds of Moordin Forest several thousand miles northeast of Seryys City. The snout was slightly shorter, but the nose, whiskers and vertical pupils set in yellow irises were unmistakable. This thing was a hunter. He couldn’t tell if the thing stood upright, or if it was male or female, but Weller’s heart began to pound in his chest while being held in its gaze.

  When the thing spoke, its voice was a low rumble in a language none of them had ever heard.

  Weller took a breath and gulped. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t understand your language! My name is Admiral Will’Tuul Weller of the Serrys Ship Founders’ Pride.”

  The beast nodded and then spoke in Seryysan of all languages. “Well, well. Have we Alpha Centaurians or Humans…or, perhaps, another offshoot?”

  “We are called Seryysans. We hail from a planet called Seryys far from here. We are travelers.”

  “I am Vor’l of the F’Rosians. State your business in our space.”

  The word F’Rosians ramped up the tension on the bridge so much one could taste it.

  “As I said before,” Weller dodged the question, “we’re travelers who happened upon some information that indicated that this sector of space was under the jurisdiction of the people we call the Founders.”

  “Hmph! Founders. That is a new designation for these… people. Are you sure you are not following the tracking beacon that lies within that asteroid field?” Weller visibly paled and a knowing sneer stretched across its muzzle, revealing sharp teeth. “Ah, I see. Well, Seryysan, Alpha Centaurian or human, whatever you call yourselves, you have just started a war, a war you cannot win. Your Founders, the Alpha Centaurians, fell before our power and so will you.

  “Sir!” the tactical officer shouted. “They’ve targeted us!”

  “Battle stations!” Weller shouted. “Scramble the fighters!”

  Only one ship advanced and started firing. The energy shield projected from the Protectors lit up as bright as a sun! The purple lances of energy pounded away at the ships’ shields. For the moment, the shields were holding, but Weller could see over at the slave control stations that they weren’t going to hold much longer.

  “Return fire! Hit them with the Mark Fours! Support Frigates, fire at will!”

  Amber spears lashed out at the aggressing ship as the smaller vessels disbursed and started pecking away at the mammoth vessel. The protective shield lit up and absorbed the blasts. The F’Rrosian ship was continuing to pour fire at them.

  “Protector shields are down to five percent!”

  Come on! Weller prayed.

  Suddenly, with every ship in the armada pouring fire on this single ship, a conflagration blossomed near the stern of the ship, sending fire and debris in all directions. The pinpoints of light flickered and went out as the ship listed off to the left of their screen. A collective whoop echoed through the bridge until the second and third ships moved into firing range.

  “Time to spring the trap!” Weller shouted over the cheering. “Target the asteroids behind the enemy. Hauling beams, drag them into the fight!”

  Suddenly the lumbering asteroids began to change direction and collide with the remaining ships. Between that and the cannon fire, two more ships went up in flames. More cheering came. Then, the tide changed. The first ship came back online…or was it even down? The lights came up immediately and began to pelt Pride and her sister ships. The “disabled vessel” had drifted past the Protectors’ barrier and was now chewing away at the ships’ individual shields.

  “Go evasive!” Weller ordered to his fleet. Ships scattered like Shellbugs in a seedy hotel when the lights came on. Each ship was in constant contact via a network so that each tactician knew what every ship was doing. Even in the chaos, each ship did her part and an orchestrated dance played out on their tactical HUDs.

  However, no matter what they did, the enemy was winning. Only a few ships remained when Weller ordered the com officer to send a distress signal back to Seryys. The officer nodded that he was live. Weller grimaced as four more support frigates went up in flames.

  “This is Admiral Weller of the Sixth Fleet. We have suffered massive casualties at the hands of a race that call themselves the F’Rosians! We will not make it out of this alive.” That statement turned heads. Weller could see the fear in their eyes and felt a swell of emotions from pride in his crew, to fear of his own death, to love for the family he was leaving behind. “Be warned! They are far beyond us in technology. Bolster the defense fleet and abandon the weapons cache. It isn’t worth any more lives than it’s already cost!”

  “Khai,” Sibrex said gravely. “I’m getting a distress call from the Founders’ Pride. She’s under attack and the fleet has suffered severe losses!”

  “What?” Khai’s dread was almost tangible. “By who?”

  “The F’Rosians!”

  That was all it took.

  “Okay. Dack, did you hear that?”

  “I did, Khai. What’s the plan?”

  “We go to help—now!”

  “Khai,” Sibrex interrupted. “I’m getting a coded personal transmission from Admiral Weller.”

  “Put it up on the HUD.”

  The screen blinked to the bridge of the Pride. Sparks flew about as the bridge lurched from one side to the next. Many of the crew members were dead, lying over their stations where they took their last breaths fighting. Weller stood stoically at the center.

  “General Khail,” he said. “Do NOT exit the asteroid field for any reason. Am I clear?”

  “With all due respect, sir, I can’t just-”

  “That’s an order. Make yourselves small and wait it out. There’s no sense in losing everything!”

  Khai tightened his lips and frowned. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. When the coast is clear, get the hell out and report back to Seryys.”

  “Yes, sir. May the Founders smile upon your journey, sir.”

  “You t-” the channel abruptly closed and it didn’t take a genius to figure out the Pride was lost.

  “Okay, Dack and all tech shuttles. Find a cozy spot and power down. Passive scans and life-support only. Keep the radio chatter to an absolute minimum.”

  “We’re not leaving?”

  “What part of Admiral Weller’s orders did you not understand?” Khai snapped. “Now follow orders and find a hiding spot.”

  The Bucket and Splitter docked and hid while the six shuttles scattered into the asteroids along the inner edge of the void and hunkered down. Once he felt the thump of the Bucket docking, he opened the channel for the last time. “Everyone snug?” Khai called out. He got affirmatives from everyone. “Good. Do not make a move or a sound until my command. Khail, out.” Khai closed the channel. “Joon, give me a silent countdown for six hours.”

  “As you wish, Khai. Do you think that’s enough time?”

  “No. We’re gonna have to make a run for it one way or the other. I just want everyone cool and calm when the time comes.”

  �
�I’m going to need more repairs after this, aren’t I?”

  “I’m afraid so, Joon…”

  Epilogue

  “Sir,” the aged hound-like man approached Vor’l.

  “What is it?” he rumbled.

  “I have the casualty reports.”

  “Give them to me,” Vor’l ordered, then changed his mind. “No. Read them aloud.”

  “Sir?”

  “Do as you are told.”

  “Yes, sir.” He held up the manifest and read it aloud, “We lost two ships: the Long Tooth and the Forepaw. The estimated loss of life was approximately twelve thousand. Our ship sustained-”

  Vor’l waved him off, clearly not interested in the rest. “Did you hear that?” he shouted to his crew. “Twelve thousand of our pack mates all gone!” he seethed. “Are we going to allow this to go unavenged?”

  “NO!” they shouted in answer.

  “Sir!” another snouted man called out. “I have tracked the transmission to its destination! It’s a backwater star system on the other side of the galaxy.”

  “Notify the fleet to assemble,” Vor’l ordered. “We attack in two days. I think it is time to expand our territory.”

  “Victory will be ours!” he said and bowed.

  Vor’l gazed out the main viewer into the space in front of him. Broken hulks of what was once a fleet of ships spun aimlessly, sparking and belching flames. The wreckage of thirty six ships, nearly a thousand fighters and roughly thirty thousand souls became part of the asteroid field and the remnants of another society.

  Seryysans, Alpha Centaurians, Humans, Vor’l mused with a fang-bearing sneer. It is hard to believe we used to be just like them; pitiful and weak. Thank the Great Ones for their interference, lest we still be exactly like them…

  The entire Sixth Fleet was gone! Thirty-six ships lost in a battle that lasted less than an hour. Prime Minister Puar buried his face in his hands—something he’d been doing a lot lately. He didn’t even want to read how many lives they had just lost. To make matters worse, neither the Bolt Bucket nor Star Splitter had reported in, meaning that there was a good possibility that his brother was among those countless dead.