Chapter Twenty-Three

Portal Ship

The Conclave was briefly pulled back from their focus on the movements of Subject Entropy when an alert was generated concerning the situation within the sector they were watching over.

The Alliance ship has turned back. They’re no longer running?

I believe that they intend to engage in battle.

Foolish.

No. There is an anomaly in the scan. Look.

The group brought back the projection, taking advantage of the compressed time to examine the situation carefully. Over and over, they observed the formulae generated by the vessel from just before the Alliance ship made its turn.

They are masking something from us with their turn. They launched another ship.

Destroy both.

Agreed. Initiate a hard combat order. The vessel is to engage and destroy the Alliance ship without delay, then continue on to locate the other ship before it can escape.

Agreed. Orders have been issued.

*****

Parithalian Cruiser Upwind

“Ross vessel has accelerated again!”

Elim flinched, but said nothing as he considered that. He would have sworn that the enigmatic species didn’t have ships that were capable of outclassing his Upwind by quite so much in terms of spacial performance. Firepower, certainly there was no comparison between them there, but during the war the Ross had not been that capable.

“Charge forward weapon arrays,” He ordered. “Watch for any alterations in spacetime. They will not be taken easily.”

“Yes, Master of Ships.”

The Upwind was still decelerating from its’ previous flight vector, moving in reverse but at an ever slowing pace as the Ross ship bore down on them. Elim did not want to change his course until the last possible moment, offering the fleeing ship with the Envoy and his group the best possible chance at escape by shielding them with the radiation of the Upwind’s own drives.

However, if the Ross ship was going to be closing at that extreme a rate, he needed to reconsider his options.

“Engines, all reverse,” He ordered. “Maximum reverse thrust, lift the limiters.”

“Yes, Master of Ships. All reverse.”

The Upwind shuddered noticeably, shaking slightly as the ship’s thrusters fired at a power and direction that was rarely used. He was confident that the noble vessel would hold together, but it was a reminder that the ships built by his people were fast, yet not always as solid as some others might be.

“Forward weapons fully charged, Master of Ships.”

“Stand ready to engage,” Elim ordered. “Draw a targeting formula for the enemy ship, center mass.”

“Formula to target, Center Mass, Yes Master of Ships.”

It didn’t take long. The Ross ship was blatant in their scopes and not even attempting to be difficult to track.

“Formula entered.”

Elim hesitated, part of him wanting to let the enemy fire first. If this were a case of mistaken identity or some other bizarre error, he might be about to start a war that the Alliance could ill afford. However, he knew it wasn’t. The enemy had attempted to assassinate the Envoy by destroying the Upwind and every soul aboard.

That was chance enough.

“Fire.”

Beam weapons that burned brighter than the heart of a star lanced out from the weapon emplacements of the Upwind, carving through spacetime at the speed of information. Even at that, the fastest speed possible in the normal universal spacetime, they took interminable moments to reach their target.

The great vessel bearing right down on the Upwind didn’t pause nor break its pace as they tore through the forward armor, venting smoke and gas into the void. A cheer went up across the command deck as the active scanners reported the successful hit almost instantly, but nearly the same time that it took for the beams to cross the distance in the first place passed again before the results were visible to the Upwind’s passive scanners.

“No slowing of the enemy vessel, Master of Ships.”

“Continue firing, full automated protocols.”

“Yes, Master of Ships.”

The next beams pulsed away a moment later.

The battle had begun.

*****

Portal Ship

Minor damage to the vessel.

Pay it no matter. Continue on course. Increase speed.

The vessel is approaching maximum acceleration possible without endangering it and those aboard.

Acknowledged. Issue the order.

Order issued.

The Conclave watched the initial exchange of fire dispassionately, unconcerned with the damage being done to the ship under their command as it went about its assigned task. For the moment all that mattered was the outcome.

The ship of the Alliance stood between them and the outcome they desired, so it would die.

Entering engagement range for the Valve.

Do not engage. Continue as planned, hold engagement until escape is impossible.

Very well.

The big ship bore on as the fire from the Alliance ship rained down on it, the distance closing with each passing slice of time as the Conclave watched.

*****

Parithalian Transport

Sienele stared at the screens, his face a dark rictus of emotion that he refused to allow out. The sensors of the small transport could not see much of anything past the Upwind itself, the radiation from the cruiser’s big thrusters turning their resolution to effectively null.

Even so, he didn’t look away.

He was no expert on the combat of fleets, Sienele would easily admit that had he had been present at more than enough to have an idea of what was happening. So long as he could see the Upwind, he knew that the battle was not over… or, at least, it hadn’t been over at the time that light had bounced off their hull before starting its journey to the small ship’s scanners.

The Parithalians were the backbone of the Alliance fleet, projecting power across entire sectors of the Galaxy at the behest of the Alliance peoples, and were generally considered the unmatched masters of anything that flew.

The Ross were, quite simply… not. They had no apparent interest in flight tactics, skills, or anything resembling a true talent for maneuvering in three dimensions. What they did have, however, was a rather large number of monstrous ships that could take a severe beating from any conventional weapon system the Alliance fielded while simultaneously displaying levels of power that, in any save and righteous universe, would not be in the hands of mortal species.

He had no idea whether the Upwind would be able to hold off the Ross long enough for the old ship he was on to escape… truthfully, Sienele didn’t know if they would be able to even survive the next few moments.

And he couldn’t even see them to watch.

*****

Parithalian Cruiser Upwind

Elim held on as the deck vibrated under him, tilting dangerously forward as their reverse thrusters were pushed past the limits of the inertial compensation as much as they dared. It left the deck of the cruiser feeling like it was tilted at a nearly thirty-degree angle as everyone tried to ignore it while they kept on working.

The Ross vessel had not ceased to accelerate, which told him that they intended to simply blow right past the Upwind, finishing them off in passing before continuing onward. There was no reason for that maneuver, unless they had detected the launch of the small ship with the Envoy and were intent on intercepting it as well.

“Master of Ships, primary weapon ports are showing signs of overheating.”

“Continue firing.”

“Yes, Master of Ships.”

Elim could not care one whit about overheating at this point. If his ship survived this encounter, it was already heading for mandatory refit, if not destined to be scrapped and rebuilt entirely. The engines were screaming their protests, the hull had to be stressed to the fracture point by now, and he expected that they had all manner of minor systems issues derived from the aborted attempt to Jump from the system earlier.

Blowing out the weapons ports wasn’t even a blip on his screens. It might have mattered, were the fight to go on long enough, but if it wasn’t over the next few moments… well it was going to be over in the next few moments.

“Gravetic Anomaly!”

“Evade! Pattern Sio Bram!”

“Evading!”

The deck tilted wildly to the left now, everyone hanging on desperately as the ship scrambled to get out of the growing well of spacetime in their previous position.

The Upwind suddenly seemed to twist. The tilt of the deck reverse as a crewman was ripped from his station by the sudden sheer and thrown across the deck in a painful sprawl.

“Someone take his station!”

The Ross had finally decided to return fire.

*****

The conclave observed the Alliance ship as it evaded the initial pulse from their vessel’s primary weapon, disappointed slightly but unsurprised by the success of the maneuver.

The Alliance species, Parithalian was the accepted identifier according to records, was noted to be quite talented in special maneuvering within three dimensions. Most avian species were, though relatively few advanced to the point that they were capable of showing it off outside their natural atmospheres.

For reasons the People did not truly understand beyond a slight admiration for any talent they saw, the species seemed to think that skill gave it an advantage over others. Made it somehow superior.

Primitive species were curious in that way.

The Ross saw little point in the artful maneuverings of the Parithalian species, be it in normal activities or, especially, in war. What mattered was the outcome.

And the outcome was decided.

*****

Parithalian Cruiser Upwind

The deck leveled out, on the side-to-side axis at least, while still keeping the forward tilt from the massive acceleration they were pushing to draw out the engagement as long as they could.

The monstrous acceleration of the Ross vessel, however, had just destroyed their initial velocity advantage and was now eating up the space between them with terrifying ease.

“Ready secondary weapons,” Elim ordered. “Continue full automatic fire on all primary batteries.”

“Continue firing, Yes Master of Ships. Secondary weapons report ready!”

“Establishing targeting formula for the enemy ship. Target their drives!”

“Formula established and loaded!”

“Fire all secondary batteries!”

“Firing!”

The ship’s deck again shuddered with the power of its weapons unloading into the cold dark of space.

*****

The Upwind’s secondary batteries were accelerated munitions, ballistic after launch, with high kinetic energy and powerful negative matter warheads. Not the sort of thing to use lightly, due to the danger they presented if one happened to miss, but a necessary concession to the sheer damage and speed of physical weapons used in space combat.

At the speeds they were launched at, no chemical or even atomic trigger could possibly hope to detonate once the weapons contacted their target. And managing pinpoint detonation when closing speeds could be in excess of the speed of information was not feasible.

Negative matter warheads didn’t require a detonator, and were unaffected by the impact save that it would ensure that their containment vessel was well and truly breached. Once that happened… well, nature took care of the rest.

The small spheroid warheads tore across space at over a third the speed of information, closing on a ship that was already doing more than that coming the other direction. Unlike energy weapons, however, that did give some slight warning that such weapons were in play which was why the Master of the Upwind had waited so long to fire them.

The Ross vessel, unlike previous motions, did move to evade the attack this time, but the delay period was too short, and it was unable to entirely clear the path.

Almost half the fired weapons struck home in a single blinding cataclysm of radiated energy.

*****

Elim ignored the cheers and exultations that swept across the command deck of the Upwind. He’d seen the battle records from the previous war with the Ross and wasn’t ready to call it a win just then.

“Give me a status on the enemy ship!” He ordered over the noise.

“Radiation is interfering with scans. We’re attempting to scrub it and it’s dropping off quickly…”

Elim closed the tough bony shell of his beak like mouth, grinding it as the tension of the wait bore down on him.

The screens were blacked out, having gone completely white when the front of the detonations reached them, overwhelming the instruments to the point that safety measures kicked in to keep them from being burned completely out. There was nothing to do but wait for the radiation energy to fade so that they could once more see.

The screens slowly came back on, blurred imagery appearing as the limitations of the instruments were pushed passed their capacity, but still it was something.

The blob of radiation showed up as a variety of colors fading one into the other, quickly settling even as he watched.

“Scans clearing up, Master of Ships. Visuals should be clear in just a few more moments.”

Unconsciously, Elim had gripped the edge of his console, waiting for the signal to clear enough to see. He leaned in, trying to will it to go faster, and was almost torn out of his position when the alarms for a gravetic anomaly suddenly screamed.

“Evasion! Get us out of…”

*****

Portal Ship

The explosion of the Alliance vessel briefly blotted out all scans of the sector from the eyes of the Conclave, the radiated energy blotting out those scanners quite effectively, and the sudden unnatural hole in the local spacetime essentially wiping out any decent resolution from the scanners that focused on that.

The conclave were unconcerned with that change, however, as their ire was more focused on the damage to the responding vessel.

The initial pulses from the Alliance ship’s primary weapons were inconsequential. Surface damage of that sort would be handled by the ship’s automated repair function over a relatively short period of time and served to do no negative effects on the ship’s necessary functions.

The negative matter warheads that had been launched at the last moment, however, were another issue entirely.

The vessel’s available acceleration was now cut to one third of its ideal maximum, and the damage was so severe that the spacetime shockwave of it’s own attack had caused even more damage to the structure of the ship.

They silently placed the vessel onto the immediate recycling list, just as soon as it returned to the People’s space.

First, however, it had one single mission left to accomplish, if it could.

*****

Parithalian Transport

Sienele swore as he watched the destruction of the Upwind over the limited scanners that were installed in the old transport. He pushed the display away and got up, making his way to the front of the vessel, kicking aside some of the Colonel’s supplies that were still stacked along the path.

“The Upwind has been destroyed, but I believe they might have bought us some time. How far to the Jump Point?” He demanded, leaning over the seat where Kriss was manipulating the controls.

“Too long, unless they bought us a fair amount of it,” Kriss answered grimly. “Last calculations had the Ross vessel placing us in range well short of the jump point.”

“I suppose we shall have to hope that the Upwind was more successful than we fear, then,” Sienele said fatalistically.

Kriss just grinned, “Hope if you like, it matters little now. Our fate is decided, all we need to do is wait to find out what the decision is.”

Sienele hated the Lucian attitude sometimes.

*****

OceanofPDF.com