Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race (42 page)

The only Chxor on-board, the purser, controlled the rations.  That was the real power.

Forrest just commanded the movements of the ship, and made sure they made quota at the end of the day.

“Any changes?” He asked as he stumbled into the cramped command deck.  It really wasn’t much more than a cockpit, he knew.  He scratched at an itching spot behind his ear.  They’d just gotten a batch of new guys.  Probably one of them had fleas and brought them along for a ride.

Boris Timovich might be considered an XO, if an XO made moonshine out of the moldy grain mush they got twice a day.  “Some new ships came in.  Way they are moving, at least one of zem’s damaged.  Ve vill have increased quota, you vill see.”

“Care to bet a bottle?” Forrest said with smile.  He rubbed one hand across his shaved-bare scalp.  Shit happened, he’d be damned if he let the Chxor take away his spirit.

“
Nyet.”

Forrest laughed, then frowned at the sensors.  “Looks like most of the Chxor ships are moving.” He pointed at the crude screen, which showed the ships’ movement.  They only had the most basic radar systems, just enough to show rough positions and to avoid collisions.  “Maybe something’s happening.”  He shot a glance at the other man.  “Might be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”

Boris stared at the screen suspiciously.  When he spoke, the words came grudgingly, almost as if he resented the opportunity, “Da... might be.”

***

Lucius rapped the fingers of his right hand against his thigh, then checked the tightness of his seat restraints again.  He looked over at Kandergain again and then looked up at the clock that ticked away the seconds.

The bridge of the
Peregrine
sat silent and Lucius felt tempted to call over to the
War Shrike
to hear Captain Doko’s voice.  He half wished he had remained aboard his ship, and not transferred to the captured vessel.

“
We’ll emerge in thirty seconds, Baron.” Commander Beeson said.  The youth had aged prematurely from the events of the Chxor occupation.  He’d lost his entire family, and Lucius wasn’t sure the young man really knew how much he’d changed.  He had lost a good deal of weight and his normally cheerful voice still sounded subdued.  “If Captain Kral did his job, the base will be wide open.”

“
Hopefully, so.” Lucius said to his XO.  He glanced at his screen as he studied the formation of ships.  They’d elected to make this attack a small one, to use their more rapid vessels and their fighter squadrons to chew apart the Chxor formations rather than overwhelm them with force.

The two battleships remained the largest vessels in the attack force.  If things went badly wrong, they could find themselves massively out-gunned.

Lucius glanced up at the clock one last time, and caught a smile from Kandergain, seated over at navigation.  As he watched the last seconds tick away, he hoped his instincts weren’t wrong about Kral.

***

Kral watched with dispassion as six human ships appeared in the system.  They came in ten thousand kilometers further out than he had specified.  The System Commander immediately contacted him.  “They are not where you said they would be,
Commander
Kral.”

“
System Commander,” Kral said calmly, “Jumps can be off by several thousand kilometers.  They are close to where I said they would be, and they came in when I said they would.  You should still be able to force an engagement and at least drive them off with heavy damage.”

He waited patiently, as he knew the System Commander would need longer than himself to calculate the velocities and engagement windows.  “That is correct.  Thank you for your assistance, Squadron Commander Kral.  For the glory of the Chxor.”

“For the glory of the Chxor.”

Kral looked over at his bridge crew.  They remained alert and ready.  The ships’ drives remained up, their weapons remained powered.  Had the System Commander questioned such actions, he could honestly state that it was merely a precaution, so that his own force could move to support a defense of the repair base.

“The human force is fleeing, Ship Commander.”

“
Thank you, Sensor Officer Frel.”  Kral looked at the technician, again, and decided, should he have the opportunity, she would not be a bad option to continue his genetic line.  She came from decent genetic stock herself, being a minor genetic line, but one known for professional behavior.  Now that he and his crew were self-fertile, he thought the time had certainly come for the perpetuation of his own genetics.

He turned his attention to the sensors and watched the human withdrawal.  The ships needed time to calculate a jump through shadow space, or risk an emergency jump.  Their withdrawal, however, showed many signs of apparent panic.  Several of the ships broadcast transmissions, one ship totally in the clear broadcast a blubbering female captain as she shouted for someone to save her.

He thought that a bit excessive.

The ships drove a course that weaved.  They pushed themselves through corkscrews and curves along their withdrawal.  Those gyrations drove their ships all across a massive area of space and spread the individual ships out greatly.  At the same time, they fired out metallic chaff, thermal decoys and did their best to make themselves hard to see.  Because of their gyrations, however, they left the clouds of chaff behind them.  It littered the space behind them with a sensor fog.  All the System Commander needed for a clear shot was to pass around or through that relatively small area of space.

To the System Commander, they must look like an optimal target.  None of those ships could support the defense of the others with their broad formation and their gyrations slowed their acceleration.  Furthermore, Kral knew the ships lay outside maximum engagement range by only five thousand kilometers.  With their current velocity, the Chxor force would most likely overtake the fleeing human ships soon.

The Chxor System Commander clearly saw that some dispersal must be necessary and spread his ships out slightly to allow them to cover a wider spectrum of space and engage more of the human ships as they fled, just as the force crossed over the entry point of the humans.

A few seconds later, one of the Chxor cruisers disappeared in a bright flash.

***

Lucius Giovanni, despite his surname, had no real knowledge of acting or the theater arts.

He did think the blubbering Captain Deacon Martinez did lay it on a bit thick, however.

“
Force Bravo has remained in covering position for the repair base, still thirty thousand klicks out.  Force Alpha is closing on Point Hollywood, now,” Reese said, from his station.  It felt good to have him as his sensors and communications officer again.

Lucius stroked his chin, watching, “Any moment now.”

The Mine, Area Denial, version II, also known as the MAD II, contained a number of useful features.  The most important one, for this operation, was its ability to identify targets via IFF and mass.  Also important, each mine had a two hundred megaton antimatter warhead.

Minelayer ships never played a huge roll in space battles.  Space was big.  Mines were static.  Mine fields could never cover all of the possible approaches to a world, much less a star system.  Even so, the Dreyfus Fleet had six minelayer ships, each roughly the size of a battlecruiser.  Those minelayers carried two hundred of the large mines in their external racks, and their corkscrew maneuvers littered the area behind them with dense vertical minefields the pursuing Chxor commander couldn’t hope to miss.

The first mine ignored the Chxor cruiser approaching right up until it physically collided with it.  The two hundred megaton explosion erased the Chxor cruiser.

The other mines in that formation sensed the passing Chxor dreadnoughts only a few seconds later.  Detonations in space did not propagate as well as those in atmosphere.  Even so, the massive explosions wreaked terrible damage to the dreadnoughts.  The screening cruisers, even out in front, also took damage.

Before the first chain of detonations finished, the Chxor hit the second.

“
Orders to the strike force, move out from behind Melcer VII and engage Force Bravo.”  Lucius turned his attention to the other Chxor force and ignored the chain of explosions as the Chxor System Commander committed suicide in a very spectacular fashion.

His own force, led by the two battleships, swung out from behind Melcer VII and its dense debris cloud.

Most Chxor, Lucius knew, would be paralyzed by the loss of their commander.  Many would hesitate, waiting to see if any orders would be forthcoming.  A few, a small few, would realize what was had happened and do their best to take action to salvage a situation.

Unfortunately, it looked the commander of Force Bravo was one of the latter.

“He’s moving towards the repair base.”

***

Forrest Perkins knew an opportunity when he smelled one, and either Boris had actually used a water ration to bathe or the series of massive explosions stank of it.

The explosions had to be massive, they were visible to the human eye, hundreds of thousands of kilometers distant.  The pinprick flashes of light signified some kind of battle, at least.  The Chxor force out there wasn’t even on their radar anymore, “Someone’s sure as hell getting the shit kicked out of them,” Forrest crowed.

“
Da, is probably not Chxor.” Boris cautioned.

“
Either way, get on the net, call Chelsea and Bruno, have them get the others, we’re blowing this turkey joint!”  Forrest pumped his fists in the air.  “Woohoo!”

Boris shook his head then growled into his handmike.

The Chxor used ten of the small, labor-intensive mining ships and they’d planned to use all of them for the break.  The ships didn’t have much for engines or anything for FTL.  They didn’t have any real weapons, either, just the mining lasers and the tractor beams.  They had the handheld cutters for some people and just about everyone except the brand new guys had at least a shank.

Forrest seated himself in the pilot jump seat.  “Tell the boys that Bren the Chxor can breathe vacuum.”  If nothing else, they’d kill the one Chxor. 
Cruel bastard deserves it, too
, Forrest thought.

He spun the ship away from the hunk of rock they’d mined for the past week.  The ship’s fusion drive shoved them forward at a sluggish sixteen kilometers per second per second..  Behind him, his tractor cables drew the rock along with them.

The plan, such as it was, put a lot of hope into surprise of the Chxor and to somehow capture a transport or something.

Boris pointed at the screen, “The Chxor, that new force and the other one, they’re headed for the station.  They try to cut us off.”

Forrest cursed, “No, they must realize the attackers are here to free the prisoners.  Why else lure most of the ships away for the battle?  Those Chxor are going to destroy the base, and kill the prisoners.”

Boris stared at the screen, a fierce scowl on his face.  “The human ships won’t reach them before they can fire.”  His accent had gone thick with anger.

“We could be alright... if we waited here.” Forrest said, even as he started to alter course to intercept the closest Chxor.  “We don’t have to be heroes.”

Boris was too busy on the radio with the other mining ships.

“Buddy, this is when you say ‘nyet, not vorth my life,’ and tell me to turn around.”

“
Nyet.  I think this might be.”  Boris sounded… almost happy.

Forrest looked over at the hairy face with its big broad smile and suddenly scowled, “You’re kidding me right?  Four years on this clinker, you don’t smile once.  You just mope and say we’re doomed to die.  We set on a suicidal course to throw away our best chance of survival, and you’re suddenly mister sunshine?”

The other man gave a shrug, “How many Chxor we kill before today?”

“
None,” Forrest growled.

“
How many we going to kill today?” Boris asked, as they drew within range of the Chxor ships.  He coerced the pitiful radar to give them a firm lock on the large dreadnoughts.

Forrest suddenly smiled as target carats appeared on the nearest dreadnought, “A lot.”  He flipped on the ship’s intercom, “Fire up them lasers boys, we’re killing us some Chxor today!”  He tweaked the tractors and juggled the ship’s trajectory.  He juked the maneuvering thrusters at the same time as he cut the tractor cables and watched as the vessel-sized rock began to drift ahead of them.  “Woohoo!”

***

Kral the Chxor stared at his screen, plotting the intercept with the four remaining dreadnoughts and their cruiser screen.  The Squadron Commander had just sent a message for them to unite forces, to destroy the shipyard and then turn and fight the human forces.

They were followed the first part of that plan, though the enemy commander had figured things out sooner than planned.

“Squadron Commander,” Technical Officer Frel said, “It appears that the mining ships are attempting to interpose themselves between Force Bravo and the station.”