19
The nightmares returned.
Somehow she floated in space, destroying the fleet. Tearing ships apart and scattering the bodies from them like small insects from broken habitats.
The darkness overtook her.
The shape or form of a young man came to her in the cold horror of that devouring darkness.
He was blacker than the night, darker than the darkness itself, his eyes like the cores of singularities. Unlight. A darkness so deep that even light could not escape from it.
“Where are you?” he asked. “You know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Right?”
“
Who are you?” Naero asked. “What’s happening to me?”
“
We all carry the seeds of the shadow within us. We can control it. We can learn wisdom.”
“
Help me.”
“
I don’t know how. We don’t even know where or what you are. But your wild energies frighten the universe. Your dark potentials fill the Void itself with despair and threaten all.”
“
We?”
Naero
’s eyes blinked awake. She lay naked and alone in the darkness of her cabin.
The fifth
and final day before they came out of jump later that afternoon.
After PT, their morning studies concentrated on
economics and trade, market and investment strategies, review of the ship’s business and projected itinerary.
Thank goodness the weird snakes or whatever popping out of her head were gone. But the insane voice in her head switched to a new chant.
Me. Me, me, me, me…
Like the
other one, she did her best to ignore it. but it was still there, droning in the background of her mind.
With the
added burden of the increased Spacer security alert, a lot of heated debate erupted among the ship captains and officers as to how they could still best maximize the fleet’s profits while maintaining an increased security profile.
They were still primarily in Triaxian Space, trading deep within the
wide open Corps Sectors where almost anything could happen.
If only they were back home, in the
Spacer Sectors among the Clans. Or even in Joshua Tech Space close by.
Bu
t Naero had helped her parents pweak deals and profits since she was nine. She scanned the manifests. Studied the market patterns on their next five stops.
“Captain Sleak,” she said, “we can’t improve much at Epsilon Sextanis-6; maybe a few points on the textiles and rare minerals. The electronics and machine parts are a loss, I’m afraid. Their markets spiked a few days ago.”
“I noticed that.”
“We can hold them for two jumps or trade for medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, grav equipment, and heavy mining machinery and paramilitary weapons, vehicles and ordnance. Triax has big problems with a serious mining revolt across eleven systems and counting.”
Captain Maradi of
The Ardala
raised an objection. “Restricted Zones are popping up all around us. That’s not good, however you look at it.”
They haggled over the details for a couple of hours.
Naero made a few other decisions that the captains liked–even Aunt Sleak. And none of them took the fleet into the heart of the mining revolt.
Jan
’s suggestions were just the opposite, all over the board. All of them screamed high risk, high profit.
Aunt S
leak remained somewhat more cautious, but she did take calculated risks.
Jan kept trying
to convince them to run some of his plan, to no avail.
“
We’ve got more than enough to consider here,” Aunt Sleak said. “We’ll post our final decisions on the Clan Net. All crews, take a breather. We’re out of jump in less that two standard hours. Everyone on duty needs to be at their ready stations. Dismissed.”
Naero went back to her quarters to
do some laundry and a little more reading before they emerged. With regular effort, her quarters were less of a disaster than usual. She’d kept her bunk and her floor more or less cleared off, and slept in her bunk regularly now, instead of on the floor or in zero-G or a float bag.
And definitely n
ot in her flex chair, as she had for years because she either couldn’t get her bunk panel out or it was too piled up with crap.
Being small had its advantages. She could curl up like a cat and get comfortable almost anywhere for a snooze.
But keeping her quarters in better shape was a promise she made and kept
–to herself–and her parents.
They emerged from jump with the customary shuddering of the ship
. The fleet spread out into is standard formation, emerging back into real space-time.
Naero punched up their position
s on one of her screens, even though she didn’t have bridge duty for several hours.
The Shinai
flanked
The Dromon
on the port side, with
The Slipper
posted starboard. Their two smaller ships,
The Nevada
and
The Ardala
,
brought up the rear this time.
A red hot scarlet particle beam, 60mm in diameter, lanced through Naero’s walls like they were paper, disrupting her wallscreens.
A direct hit from a big gun.
At the very least, a heavy destroyer.
Warning lights flashed immediately.
The rupture in the hull led to an immediate explosive decompression.
Naero held on tight to her bunk and went flat on the floor as the hull sealed itself.
All ships were vulnerable
coming out of jump. They couldn’t activate their shields until right after they emerged.
Someone had been waiting
for them.
The Dromon
continued getting rocked by multiple hits from what felt like several spinal guns and secondary batteries.
But the big planetoid could take it and give back plenty, her
quad main guns humming and whining to life, coming online.
Naero
hit her wristcom. All her screens down.
“
Bridge. Status?”
“
We stepped into it. They were waiting for us. We’re under heavy fire. Multiple bogeys.”
T
he general alert sounded.
“
Battle Stations. Battle Stations.”
Aunt Sleak cut over the com. “All hands.
All hands, to your stations. Prepare for battle. All ships, all batteries, return fire. Launch all fighters.”
Naero suited up and raced to the drop bay of her fighter. She met Jan along the way.
More intense fire.
Dromon
reeled and fired back.
She and Jan almost got rocked off their feet again.
A security team intercepted them at the launching bays.
Their fighters had already dropped with their backup pilots.
“The Fleet Captain wants you two at your secondary defense stations, not out in the mix.”
Jan started to protest.
“Orders are orders. Get to your stations.”
They
ran to their remote gunnery stations, small secured cubicles with a chair and a console, operating triple pulse turrets on the hardpoints above them.
Naero brought up
her autotargeting displays, weapons already powered up and humming.
The secondary battery gunnery stations operated
independently and were well-protected. They were also fully automated, but they still functioned more effectively with a human interface.
Coordinated
targeting profiles came online as she watched.
Jan
operated a torp turret nearby.
Directly ahead of the fleet
. Twelve elite Matayan destroyers, each with a dozen escort fighters.
Half of their number
pursued and attacked a convoy of two dozen independent mining freighters.
Aunt Sleak
’s fleet scrambled, launched, and deployed a total of threescore fighters in a standard Alpha-Charlie-1 defensive screen.
Outnumbered two to one.
“All batteries make ready. Incoming torps,” the Bridge com sounded.
Countermeasures took out half of the blips heading their way.
Spacer fighters and the forward defensive batteries blasted the rest.
“
That attack’s a diversion,” Naero muttered.
Shinai’s
fire control and com computers fixed on and monitored all channels. Including those between the hapless freighters and the corsairs.
“Mayday, mayday, w
e are under intense corsair attack. All ships. Assistance, assistance. Heavy damage and casualties.”
“
What do you want?” another panic-stricken voice cried out. “We’ll surrender. You can board us. We have no goods and few supplies. Please, stop firing. Our ships are full of workers–full of people. You’re killing civilians. We’re on fire!”
Scanners displayed an awful,
one-sided battle among the transports.
Most
of the old bulk freighters didn’t even have weapons.
Each of the heavily armed Matayan
destroyers was more than a match for them or most of the ships in Aunt Sleak’s fleet.
E
xcept for the 6m quad spinal guns of
The Dromon
.
One
crippled freighter broke apart and exploded under concentrated fire from three destroyers. It didn’t have any shields, and only minimal armor. Its two turrets either didn’t work or had been taken out already.
Static and Matayan battle language rang out in triumph.
Dromon’s
four primary guns cut loose, lighting up the entire sector. Its blue-white blasts ripped into the lead corsair flagship and its wingships, disrupting their shields.
The starboard wingship took two hits and listed to one side. Its aft section exploded.
“This is Captain Sleak Maeris of Clan Maeris. Enemy vessels, be advised: Cease hostilities and vacate this system or be destroyed.”
M
atayan curses and laughter her only reply.
“
Clan Maeris,” one of the freighter captains cut in. “This is Captain Philsen of
The Botaru
. Help us! Our situation is desperate. The corsairs are trying to destroy us. We don’t know why.”
“
Acknowledged. We’re coming in. Disperse if you can. You’re still too bunched up. Scatter and concentrate on defensive actions. Jump if you’re able. We’ll try to draw them off. We’re boosting your distress call.”
Three
more corsairs turned on the fleet, with all twelve dozen fighters full front on intercept.
The other
trio of Matayan attackers kept after the freighters.
Naero heard the pleading and the screams on the open channel
, just before another freighter got blasted to oblivion.
Naero realized she had tears on her face.
Was that how her parents went? Blasted to death by Matayan guns?
The rage she felt nearly overwhelmed her reason
.
S
he checked her systems, gripped the controls of her gunnery station, and forced her emotions to go cold.
Against superior numbers, Naero
and her Clan Fleet closed for battle.
20
The Dromon
led the Spacer attack.
It ignored every hit.
The punch of its massive spinal guns disrupted the shields of the next three corsairs. The blast impacts knocking the Matayan destroyers aside in mid-space as if they were toys.
The Slipper
’s
spinal gun disrupted the shields on another, leaving them vulnerable to killing strikes. But they could still fire back.
Shinai
exchanged hits with yet another.
Enemy fighters locked on and swept in.
Naero watched the rush of combat on her viewer.
Her targeting
analyzed approaches, selecting optimal targets.
The Matayan
fighters attacked in well-timed waves, launching missiles from afar to distract and soften up their opponents.
They worked as a unified team,
coming in on optimal attack vectors, revealing their advanced military training.
Outnumbered, the
Spacer fighters held their formation close to take advantage of the fleet’s guns and countermeasures.
Naero had only been in a few skirmishes.
This was her first all-out fight.
Friends fought out there in those ships
. Her Clan.
Some
wouldn’t return.
M
ore Spacer wakes.
Blood pounded in her ears over the chatter of the pilots
. The continued pleas of mercy from the helpless freighters.
“
All batteries,” Aunt Sleak’s voice thundered over the com. “Open fire. Fire at will.”
“
All right,” Naero said out loud. “Give me some shootin’ music.”
Her AI answered with the pulse and hammering beat of preset throck tunes.
Naero cut loose.
H
er pulse turret spun, fired, and took out three missiles.
New targets came up
. The system directed her.
She winged an enemy fighter.
It shot past out of range.
Analysis.
The attacking Matayan fighters were Omni GT-82s, a bit old but tough, serviceable, and well-armed.
Her people flew Kima A-12s, fast and maneuverable, but with slightly less weaponry. Aunt Sleak had
meant to update them with better armaments and ordnance.
Missile and blast hits burst in bright energy flashes.
The corsair destroyers returned coordinated fire.
Dromon
took the brunt of the damage like a juggernaut and kept coming.
The Slipper
listed from two strikes, one from a spinal gun, the other from a missile–but her shields held at sixty percent.
Seventeen
Matayan Omnis got vaporized or knocked out in the initial clash. One Spacer Kima. Two more floated dead in space.
Naero tried not to think about who was gone.
The fleet’s two smaller ships,
The Nevada
and
The Ardala,
defended the rear, unable to do little more than protect that and themselves. The enemy fighters ignored the armored
Dromon
and directed all their fire on the more vulnerable
Slipper
and
Shinai
.
Shields on
The Slipper
buckled, but her armor held. No major damage yet.
More mining freighters
exploded, more screams silenced.
Cries of victory from the corsairs.
“
Dromon,
all ships,” Aunt Sleak ordered. “Continue closing; concentrate all fleet batteries on the destroyers attacking the freighters.”
“
We’re going to take a pounding from the others,” Zalvano said.
“
We’ve rattled them. Now make the bastards pay. Put fire on them!”
The fleet bore down on the killers.
The Slipper’s
rapid-fire spinal gun knocked out the first destroyer’s shields with three direct hits.
The Shinai
blasted the next, disrupting its shields and doing further damage to its weapons.
The Matayan destroyer leading the assault on the freighters br
oke off and immediately withdrew.
The Dromon’s
massive quad cannons pulsed blue-white throughout its length.
Its beam
s ripped into the third destroyer’s shields and armor, and tore through the jump drives of the second from behind as it turned to run.
The area went blinding white suddenly
. The second destroyer’s energy core detonated like a small nova.
Heav
ily damaged, corsair number one went into jump.
The other
enemy destroyers regrouped and closed in.
They
swept past the lumbering
Dromon
to get at
The Slipper
and
The Shinai
close-up, exchanging broadsides and point-blank strikes from their main guns in a whirl of intense fire.
Dromon
surprised everyone and spun violently on its axis.
Its
secondary batteries and the main guns of the two smaller ships raked the enemy.
The Matayans broke off
and limped away, badly mauled.
The
remaining enemy fighters tried to break off to rejoin their fleeing ships. Naero locked onto two Omni’s and kept at them until they exploded. He first kills, and she felt no remorse.
The Slipper
listed further and burned, crew scrambling to contain the damage. Her teks flung her shields back up at the last instant to keep her from being destroyed.
The remaining
Spacer fighters chased the enemy down ship to ship. The final showdown lasted only seconds.
Only
a handful of the enemy fighters survived to rejoin their ships. The Spacers took one other casualty. Several Kimas limped home or got towed, in very bad shape.
The Dromon
came about and blasted another destroyer to atoms with direct hits from all four main guns.
The Matayans had enough. The
ir remaining destroyers jumped.
Captain Ensel Volaski let out a
wild howl from
The Dromon
.
“Turn and run, you filth. We’ve broken the scum!”
Cheering erupted from the Spacer ships.