Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Read online

  “First six?”

  “Of course, I screened their genetics myself. We know a lot about them already. When the time comes, we just have to pop ‘em back in the oven and start the timer.”

  Naero struggled to keep her jaw from bouncing off the floor.

  “How many of those jaspers do you plan on having?”

  “We’re not sure yet, so we decided to start with six.” She pointed to the first frozen little capsule affectionately “This guy will be the big brother to all the rest. We decided to name him Gallan.”

  Naero nodded. “Oh, how sweet. Gallan was always good with kids. He would have loved that.”

  More twinges of regret about losing Gallan. But future children continued to be a new consideration.

  Right now their trade group was mostly young single spacers, hot only on furthering their careers. A few couples, and more that inevitably formed up between the various Clan ships.

  Like all peoples, Spacers found a way to link up and get together.

  Everyone but her, at least.

  Eventually they’d all have their own lives and families that would divert their time and attention.

  A natural progression. A part of life. Spacers had dealt with the natural life cycle for centuries, and had time-tested programs and policies in place to deal with every aspect.

  Still, she’d have to get used to kids of all ages being managed and educated and herded within her fleet. Just having young, driven adults on board was a lot easier and efficient for a time. But that wouldn’t last. Like all the Clans, they owed it to the next generations of Spacers to raise and train them well to both survive and thrive in a challenging and dangerous universe.

  Another priority call came in. This time directly from Admiral Klyne.

  Naero’s sense of warning spiked almost instantly.

  “Naero…what’s the current position of you and your fleet?”

  Klyne tried to hide it, but the tension in his voice rose to a certain level.

  “They just dispersed on trade runs throughout the nearby sectors.”

  “Call them back this instant. I need you and as many ships as you can muster to race to the Joshua Tech colony on Haiku-4. You’re the only available force of any size close to that location.”

  Naero nodded to Zhen, who stood ready to send the recall orders to the fleet.

  “Done. What’s the status?”

  “Colony on Haiku-4. About thirty thousand explorers and miners. They’ve come under sudden heavy attack by unknown invaders using advanced ships and weapons in naval and military formations. Ground assault units in gravarmor and heavy to light hi-tek infantry. Air-superiority fighters and gunships. Those colonists can’t hold out for very long against that kind of military firepower.”

  The Flying Dagger jumped even as they kept talking.

  "En route, Klyne. Give me all the data you have on the threat. Tell those colonists to hang in there the best they can. My ship’s the closest. I’ll arrive in stealth mode and assess the situation within six standard hours. My fleet will arrive and form up one to two hours after that and take the invaders on if we can. How soon can we expect any help from the various navies, Intel, or Alliance forces?”

  “I’m sorry, Naero. That’s why I’m calling on you and your people. Everyone else is still three or four standard days away. The border is just too spread out and expanding too fast.”

  “Understood. We wouldn’t be traveling out this far either, if we hadn’t been trying to link up with Alala. On a secret mission in the middle of nowhere. What about Ingersol and his fleet?”

  “Turning about, but they’ve already jumped twice since you left them. They won’t arrive for a standard day or more. You and your people are it for the time being, I’m afraid. Whatever’s waiting for you at Haiku-4, you’ll have to engage and handle it on your own.”

  “Got it. Any secure links with the colonists that can’t be intercepted?”

  “Negative. All com is down and the colony has gone dark. We think our new friends are jamming all attempts to get any info out.”

  Great. Just great.

  Naero and her fleet raced in blind and alone, against an unknown foe with unknown tek and fighting capabilities.

  8

  “Enel, take us in slow and quiet,” Naero told her co-pilot.

  “All crew, maintain battle stations at the ready. We need to assess the threat and plan a strategy before the fleet arrives. Only half of our ships can cloak, but that will give us some advantage, I hope.”

  Haiku-4 was a blue, green, brown and white habitable world, the poles locked in what looked to be an ice age of glaciers. A warmer, more-habitable temperate band around the equator and through the tropics. Four main continents.

  But Naero was interested in the small colony of bubble domes burning and smoking on the edge of one sheltered bay on the west coast of the largest land mass. They had been hit pretty hard, and half of the enemy fleet was on world, along with its ground forces.

  That left about two dozen bright, blood-red enemy naval vessels patrolling the planet up in the black. All looked to be warships, bristling with spinal guns and secondary batteries.

  The enemy looked anything but friendly.

  Naero and her people counted two fleet carriers, two strike carriers, four main battleships, four heavy cruisers, and eight destroyers. Four variations of the latter.

  The carriers could most likely launch over three hundred fighters.

  Oddly enough, the enemy did not even have any fighters out in the black. All down in the atmosphere.

  To her mind, that made the foe seem very cocky and over confident.

  Naero and her people busied themselves making passive scans of the enemy ships and tek, gathering and transmitting secured data streams back to her people at every step of the way. They also relayed it to Klyne, Ingersol, and Intel.

  She called out to her com and sensor array specialist.

  “We need more than an initial assessment, Surina. What precisely are we up against?"

  “The threat has tek somewhere between ours and the Corps. Main guns are particle beam cannons, supported by secondary batteries of pulse turrets and mass drivers. Level three and four shield generators. Jump ratings ranging between three and five.”

  Naero had held her breath.

  Good. No ion cannons at least.

  “Enemy fighters seem to be of three similar types: light, medium, and heavy. Capabilities, armaments, ordnance, and performance configurations extremely similar to the Triax Achilles-125D, E, and F variants.”

  That both puzzled and enraged Naero.

  “These things have gotten a hold of Triax tek? Are we up again renegade landers?"

  Surina shook her head.

  "Negative. The enemy is humanoid, mammalian, and bipedal, but not human. I’m having trouble getting a lock on their exact species. It may defy description for the time being.”

  Zhen called out from her sensor array, scanning the colony.

  “En, I think most of the fighting has ended on the surface. From what I can detect from this far away, half of the colonists are already dead from the initial battle. For some reason the enemy is already actively collecting all of the bodies in a very organized and efficient way.”

  “Bodies? What do they want with the dead colonists?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps to use them as food? Or if our species is unique enough to them, they might be collecting them to study us. Learn our frailties and weaknesses. How to kill us better. Intel might do the same with the enemy bodies when this is done.”

  “Enel, take us down there. We need to see what’s happening up close. Surina, you said half of the colonists are still alive. What are they doing?”

  "Using mining tactics. The few remaining fighters and the surviving civilians have barricaded themselves deep within a dense pocket of solid bedrock, inside the nearby mountains on the coast.”

  “I see. Hoping to hold out until help arrives.”

 
“Most likely. But the colonists did not have time to cover their tracks. Scans show that they left behind some of the same plasma borers used to make their escape.”

  “They probably didn’t have time to destroy them all.”

  “Well, the enemy is currently using the captured mining equipment to bore their way in to get at the survivors.”

  The battlefield on site was a burning nightmare.

  Several shattered and ruined geodesic bubble domes of the main colony. Completely wiped out.

  A small starport with a few burning starships and freighters. Cluttered now with the bright red enemy vessels ringing the shattered colony and vomiting out waves of gravtanks, gunships, and armored troops.

  Ruined, cooked-off enemy tanks and shot down enemy gunships. Still burning.

  Dead enemy troops in combat and lighter assault armor and masked helmets. Something familiar about those suits and weapons. But as they slowly passed over, it was hard to take everything in.

  Sadly, dead colonists too. By the dozens and then hundreds. Civilians of all types, ages, and descriptions. Cut down in waves as they ran.

  “Most of these poor people were caught by surprise,” Naero said, feeling her blood begin to heat up.

  “They were trying to flee to the safety of the mountain tunnels, but they didn’t have time to reach them. It all happened so fast, they didn’t know what hit them.”

  Surina looked up at her. Zhen too.

  “We’ve finished our initial survey of their tek and weapons,” Surina announced. “They’re well-organized, well-armed, and formidable. But our forces should be able to take them down.”

  “Something else important to know about them,” Zhen added.

  “What’s that, Zee?”

  “I’ve identified their species. They’re all Ejjai. Every one of them.”

  Naero stared at her.

  “Ejjai? Primative hyaenanoids in these numbers and this well-armed? With a fleet of hi-tek naval warships and all of this military gear?”

  Zhen nodded. “Someone has given them some serious uplifting, and unleashed a new, extremely violent and opportunistic invasive species on our galaxy.”

  Naero took several long minutes to accept that fact. Who would be stupid enough to do something so reckless? Then she focused on computing and conceptualizing an attack strategy for her fleet that should effectively neutralize the current threat, both in space and onworld.

  She beamed the plans secretly to her fleet, and they relayed them to Intel.

  In less than a standard hour, the Ejjai invaders would be on the receiving end.

  Then they wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Let them see what it was like to engage a true paramilitary force that was a match for them, and not just slaughter helpless colonists.

  But the problem was waiting for her forces to arrive.

  Currently, she only had one small ship, and less than two dozen crew–against an entire alien invasion force.

  Surina put something up on the main view screen.

  “Captain, you’d better take a look at this.”

  Everyone saw a strange, block-like ship, unlike any of the other warships. Like a red flattened cube, but with several armored hatches and loading bays flung open in various directions.

  Even weirder, the Ejjai bustled up and down the ramps like planetary army ants, carrying in and loading up the dead bodies of the colonists, and even their own dead, and piling them into the cube.

  “What the hell kind of ship is that?” Naero asked. “What are they doing? And what is that red dome-like structure behind it?”

  Both structures were unlike anything they had yet encountered among the invaders.

  “They are in fact both starships, of some kind of specialized purpose,” Surina said. “Doctor, I’ll scan the cube. You scan the dome. Let’s see what they’re doing inside.”

  “I’m on it,” Zhen said, staring at her sensor array intently. “Note that there is another cube, and another dome exactly like these, landing where the enemy is using the mining plasma borers to get at the remaining colonists.”

  Naero brought her eyes down to slits.

  None of that sounded good.

  “Bloody hell,” Surina exclaimed.

  At the same time, Zhen gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

  “What are those strange ships?” Naero demanded.

  Surina turned about, her own face very pale. “Captain. The cube vessel is a fully automated, robotic meat-processing plant.”

  Naero’s mouth fell open briefly. She checked the screen.

  The Ejjai flung everything into the meatship. Including those on both sides that were only wounded, and still alive.

  Until the automated processors ripped and sliced them apart, and processed them into stored units of future food rations for the Ejjai shock troops. “They’re going to process all the colonists into food units,” Naero said.

  Zhen attempted to chime in. “Naero, it gets worse. I’ve figure out what the dome ships are. The enemy is–”

  “Tell me later, Zee,” Naero said, cutting her off. “These meatships are bad enough. Prepare all batteries to open fire on my mark. We’re taking these things out right here and now. That dome ship too.”

  Enel protested. “You can’t do that, Captain. You’ll give away our position. Our forces aren’t here yet.”

  “We’ll be sitting ducks!” Tarim said.

  Surina suddenly looked even more fearful. Her eyes as big as ship portals. Her white face grew even paler.

  “Captain, the enemy will break in on the trapped colonists in the mountain tunnels very soon. What do we do?”

  9

  Naero’s ship only possessed twelve suits of stealth armor. Combat armor with personal cloaking devices built in.

  Enough to field one complete fire team.

  Using the stealth suits, Naero and Tarim commanded their team to leave the ship on gravwings and plant mines and demolition charges all over the enemy meatship and the dome behind it.

  The rest of the crew remained on board the cloaked flagship, ready for anything.

  Once they finished planting the charges here, they would go over to the other cube and dome by the mountains and repeat the process.

  Then they could destroy all four enemy ships without exposing their presence or position, and figure out what to do next while they waited for help to arrive.

  The only problem being, that while they were in stealth mode, they couldn’t see their own cloaked flagship once they left it, or even each other. If they got into trouble somehow, they were each on their own.

  While Naero planted her mines and charges, she ran across two Ejjai Alphas laughing and chortling on a loading ramp below her.

  The sound of eerie Ejjai, gagging laughter was horrifying, multiplied and echoed among a victorious invading army of the monsters.

  She could only imagine what a terrible effect it had had on the poor beleaguered colonists, when they heard it descending upon them.

  The alphas tore bloody meat off the corpses being hauled into the meatship and gulped the awful tidbits down at random. They seemed ravenous.

  One alpha grinned its wide, toothy grin. “Yeah, we’ll have the others for the meatships soon. Won’t be long now. Our girls are cracking those mountains open like eggs. We’d better finish up here and hurry over there quick–to get our share of the human young.”

  The other one chortled with laughter. “Yeah, we’ve killed most of the fighting males and females. The rest will be easy prey. I can’t wait.”

  “Humans,” the first sneered and then spat. “What species in their right mind lets their males do their fighting for them? No wonder we overwhelmed them so quickly.”

  The second rubbed her claws together in glee. “Next we separate and kill all of the remaining males and the old.”

  “Phaugh!” the first spat again. “Who in the hell wants old meat? Toss ‘em in the meatships. Why do these fools keep their old around anyway? Giv
e me their young to gobble on while they’re still screaming.”

  “Then we cull out and kill all of the adult females. And next, any younglings old enough to resist.”

  Now the first imitated her cohort, working her clawed hands together in mouth-watering anticipation of the coming, horrific feast.

  “I’m going to claim a female human swollen with child. First I’ll break her arms and legs. Then I’ll tear her belly open with my teeth and feast on the warm meat inside her…while she sings to me for my supper!”

  “Finally we’ll be left with the very young to feast on, for a few days while we strip this place clean. You’ll enjoy how their little helpless eyes stare up at you before you tear into them.”

  The two creatures chortled again.

  “Yeah, I can’t wait.”

  Naero resisted the very strong urge to kill them both right there.

  She had fought Ejjai before and knew very well what brutal killers they were. No doubt in her mind what they were like, and what they would do. By their own words.

  When the enemy ships exploded, these two and the rest of the monsters would get theirs.

  The first leg of their mission only took half a standard hour to complete.

  They placed their charges, and all twelve troops returned safely to The Dagger.

  They moved on to the nearby mountains and the other two enemy ships. Another blood-red, cube-like meatship and another domeship, just like the others.

  The stealth team began planting their charges like before.

  Yet this time, explosions and sounds of intense fighting came from deep within the tunnels.

  Smoke poured out from several hidden vents. Even flames.

  Naero and her people shuddered, hearing the scream of thousands within.

  Then, even worse, things got quiet, and the Ejjai troops massed around the tunnel entrances.

  Finally a tremendous uproar of Ejjai cheering and twisted laughter rang throughout the valley in alien triumph.

  As the victorious invaders drove and dragged the captured civilians blinking and cringing into the sunlight by the hundreds. Very few men, mostly women, the old, and children. Lots of children.