Beyond the Shroud of the Universe Read online

  “Very well,” Captain Sheppard said. “Comms officer, please let Domus Control know we will make the jump in one minute.” He switched to the ship-wide comms network. “All hands, this is the Captain. In 30 seconds, we will jump into the Jinn Universe. We do not know what is waiting for us there, but we know Lieutenant Commander Hobbs and his abductor are in the system. It is our mission to track them down, rescue Lieutenant Commander Hobbs and apprehend Captain Nightsong.”

  “It is likely there will be enemy ships in the system,” he continued. “We will deal with them first, and then land on the planet if necessary. Captain Nightsong is an Aesir Eco Warrior, so we know he is armed and dangerous, even when he doesn’t have any weapons. No one is to communicate with him until we are ready to apprehend him. Once we get him onboard, take no chances with him.”

  “We’ve been in combat many times together, and I am confident in your abilities. The Efreet nuked our planet; it’s time to get some back. For Terra!”

  “Helmsman, make the jump!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “System entry,” Steropes said. “Launching probes.”

  “Fighters launching,” Guns said.

  “Contact!” Steropes said. “Starboard bow, 300,000 miles! Designate contact as ‘Sierra One.’ Contact is destroyer-sized.”

  “Fire starboard missiles and grasers at Sierra One!” Captain Sheppard ordered. “Have the fighters stay clear. We’ll take this one ourselves.”

  “Taking Sierra One with starboard batteries,” the OSO said.

  Captain Sheppard could feel the ship shudder as the ASMs began launching.

  “Second contact!” the DSO called. “Port beam. Just coming over the curvature of the planet. Also destroyer-sized. Designate contact ‘Sierra Two.’”

  “Port batteries fire on Sierra Two,” Captain Sheppard ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” the OSO replied. “Taking Sierra Two with port batteries.”

  Captain Sheppard looked at his tactical display. “Is that it? Just the two destroyers?”

  “Holy shit!” the DSO exclaimed. “I’ve got activity on the moon, sir, and there’s lots of it!”

  “Coming on screen,” Steropes said. He put the image on the front view screen.

  “Oh, shit,” Captain Sheppard said under his breath. Louder, he added, “Better get the fighters on that.”

  Cockpit, Asp 07, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “We were just ordered to strike the moon,” Lieutenant Commander Sarah ‘Lights’ Brighton said.

  “Just ‘the moon?’” her pilot, Lieutenant Denise ‘Frenchie’ Michel, asked as she yanked the fighter around toward the moon ‘above’ and ‘behind’ them. “Not, ‘Strike the missile facility on the moon?’”

  “They said the Sea of Serenity but didn’t specify after that,” Lights replied. “Just a second; I’m looking.” She peered into her weapon system’s monitor. “Oh, bloody hell…that’s no moon. That’s a fucking military base!” She frantically searched for the best target among the forest of antennae, buildings, weapons and craft. The center of the crater held the largest base she had ever seen. As she scanned, a missile lifted off from an underground silo. An anti-ship missile from the size of it. “Vampires inbound from the moon!” she commed back to the Vella Gulf.

  She was at a loss. Too many targets; not enough missiles. Think, Sarah, think…They can’t shoot us if they can’t see us… “All Asps, synch up with my targeting. Asps 01-06, target your missiles on any radars you see, especially if they look like tracking radars. Asps 07-12, shoot the fighters on the ramp. We need to thin them out before they come up to play. After that, strafing runs by section; we need to hit them hard before they can respond! Fire when ready!”

  She peered back into her monitor. The fighters sitting on the ramp next to the runway looked like bugs, squat and ugly. If it weren’t for the missiles hanging on some of them and sitting next to others, she might not have recognized them as such. She picked five of the armed fighters in a group of 16. Figuring they were the alert squadron, they needed to be the first to go. She designated them to her individual missiles, then transmitted the targeting to the other fighters so no one else would target them.

  “Master armament panel is ‘on,’” she said to Frenchie. “Targets designated. Fire!”

  Frenchie squeezed her trigger and their missiles began launching, leaping out to begin the assault. Lights wished she had more…but that’s what the laser was for.

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “Both targets destroyed,” the OSO said. “Looks like we surprised them, sir; they never even got their shields up.”

  “Understood,” Captain Sheppard replied. “Comm, any luck reaching the government or the military?”

  “No sir,” the communications officer replied. “No replies so far. I think I found the frequency they are using, but my system is unable to break into their comms.”

  “Solomon, can you break in?” the CO asked.

  “Without a complete database of their language or communications systems, it is difficult. I believe they are also using some level of encryption. I will attempt to decipher their communications, but it will take some time.”

  “Sir, the facilities on the moon are responding,” the DSO replied. “I’ve got a mass launch inbound. Still trying to get an accurate count, but there are almost 100 missiles inbound. I’ve also got fighters launching from there, as well.”

  “Didn’t the fighters hit their base?”

  “Yes sir, they did,” Guns said, “and they are continuing to do so, but from what I’m hearing, the base is immense. There were hundreds of fighters on the base and more targets than we had missiles. Most of our fighters are now engaged in dog fights, rather than attacking the base. I ought to be out there.”

  “Launching AMMs,” the DSO announced. “There are going to be leakers.”

  “More missiles launching from the moon,” Steropes said.

  “Thanks,” the DSO muttered; “I so needed to know that.”

  Cockpit, Asp 12, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “Two more behind us,” Lieutenant Tobias ‘Toby’ Eppler warned.

  “Damn,” his pilot, Lieutenant Phil ‘Oscar’ Meyer, swore. “Where the hell did they come from?” He pulled hard on the stick to get the enemy fighters out of his blind spot as Toby destroyed one with the fighter’s laser.

  “No idea,” replied Toby, “but they’re everywhere. At least 300 must have made it off the moon.”

  “Individually, they suck as fighters,” Oscar noted. “I can run rings around them. Literally, rings. Their technology sucks. They must not have any of the thrust vectoring and inertial dampeners we do. I mean, they can’t turn at all; they have to stop and then accelerate in the opposite direction.”

  “Yeah, but there’s just so freakin’ many of them,” Toby said. “I can’t keep up with them all, even with assistance from the targeting computer.”

  “No shit!” Oscar exclaimed, swerving to the left to avoid two more Efreeti ships. “Their missiles are crap too,” he added as he continued the turn, “but there is a metric ass-ton of them out here.” He didn’t see the two missiles coming from the left.

  Cockpit, Asp 10, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “Gotcha, you little bastard,” Lieutenant Jim ‘Sweets’ Sweeny said as he destroyed the fighter he was chasing. The Efreeti had made the mistake of missing his fighter with a two-missile salvo, and Sweets had spun it in a tight 360-degree turn, looping in behind the Efreeti fighter and his wingman as they flew past. While they frantically tried to slow their fighters, Sweets had rolled in for the shot.

  “And now for your little brother too,” Sweets added, switching to the wingman.

  “Hurry up!” his WSO, Lieutenant Poon ‘Harpoon’ Yee, urged. “There are three coming from the right!”

  “No problem,” Sweets replied. “This won’t take
but a second.”

  “Two coming from the left, too!”

  “Got this…”

  “They’re launching!”

  “I know, just a second, almost done…”

  “We need to turn now!”

  “Got him!” Sweets exclaimed as his laser speared through the cockpit of the Efreeti fighter. “One dead salamander! Pulling out!”

  Three missiles impacted the starboard side of Asp 10, a second before two more from the left detonated in the debris.

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “Lasers and AMMs firing!” the DSO cried. His voice had risen an octave as the horde of missiles got closer. “We’re killing them fast; they’re just shooting them faster.” He switched to the ship-wide communications network. “Missiles inbound; all hands brace for shock!”

  The ship was buffeted, but didn’t rock like when missiles had hit it previously.

  “Sir, the shields stopped most of the missiles,” the duty engineer reported. “We have some minor damage in the galley and officer’s showers. Damage control parties are responding.”

  “More missiles launching from the moon,” Steropes said.

  “Sir, we just lost Asp 10 and Asp 12,” Guns reported. “It’s getting pretty bad out there. Their fighters are crap and their anti-fighter missiles are just as lame as their anti-ship missiles, but they’ve got several hundred fighters compared to our 12. Well, 10, now.”

  “Are we in range of the moon?” Captain Sheppard asked.

  “Yes sir,” the OSO replied.

  “Pull the fighters back,” the CO ordered, “and blast the moon with everything we’ve got.”

  Cockpit, Asp 07, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “Break right, Asp 06!” Frenchie commed. She fired, and her laser lanced out, destroying the Efreeti following 06.

  “We need to pull back,” Frenchie said. “There are too damn many of them. Individually, they aren’t a match, but they out-number us about 20-to-1 now, and I can’t see everywhere at once. If they keep launching more fighters, we’re going to be overwhelmed.”

  “You just got your wish,” Lights said as Frenchie destroyed another Efreeti ship, then maneuvered wildly to avoid a pair of missiles. “All Asps, clear out of the space between the Vella Gulf and the moon. I think Mom’s had enough of this bullshit, too. Rendezvous at the coordinates I’m sending you, and we’ll delouse ourselves.”

  She watched as the remaining fighters gyrated wildly to get clear of the fur ball they had allowed themselves to become embroiled in. Asp 02, with its crew of Lieutenants Brian Bouchez and Jerry Johnson, didn’t make it, succumbing to a barrage of missiles from at least three sides. Lieutenant Bouchez almost got them clear, but they took a missile he hadn’t seen coming from ‘below’ the fighter.

  Once the fighters were clear, it didn’t take the Vella Gulf long to sanitize the moon. ASMs and grasers were retargeted onto the lunar surface, flattening buildings and turning the lunar soil to fused glass. The space in between was swept clear with a barrage of the ship’s AMMs and anti-missile lasers.

  “Holy shit,” Lieutenant Erika Smith commed as she watched the ship fire broadside after broadside. The ship rolled after each launch to bring the other set of launchers to bear, doubling the effective rate of fire. The fighter’s view screen allowed her to see the laser strikes raining down like a fierce lightning storm on the lunar landscape. “They’re getting pasted down there.”

  “And good riddance to them bastards, too,” her pilot, Lieutenant Samuel Jakande, added.

  After four broadsides, no more missiles or fighters rose from the surface. Four more broadsides followed…just to make sure.

  “Guns is going to be pissed,” Frenchie said.

  “Why’s that?” Lights asked.

  “He thought he was going to be the first space ace,” Frenchie replied, “but he’s not.”

  “Did we get five kills today?”

  “No,” replied Frenchie, sounding embarrassed. “We got 12.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Anti-Domus Orbit, Unknown Date

  “I think that will be sufficient,” Captain Sheppard said. “Hold fire; let’s see if there’s anything still alive down there.”

  “I see a couple of hostile fighters still operational,” the DSO reported. “Want me to take care of them?”

  “Are they headed toward us or our fighters?” the CO asked.

  “No sir,” the DSO replied. “They appear to be going back to the moon.”

  “I think we made our point. Keep an eye on them. If they stay on the moon, let them be. If they come back up, you are cleared to fire without further direction.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Captain Sheppard,” Solomon interrupted, “I believe I have broken into their communications net. Would you like to hear what they are saying?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “The queen is still at risk from the intruders. Gather all your remaining fighters and send them in a coordinated attack with your remaining missiles. The intruders must be destroyed!”

  “General Skeeeeezzis, that is impossible. I value the queen’s safety as much as you, but sending out what remains of the fighter wing is nothing short of ludicrous. How are seven fighters going to do what 347 couldn’t?”

  “Perhaps if you were to pilot one of them, Colonel, the men would fight better.”

  “And perhaps if you hadn’t siphoned off all the money for improved equipment, the men might actually have had a chance.”

  “Solomon, can I transmit to them?”

  “Yes sir, just speak and I will overpower their transmitters.”

  “Efreeti officers, this is Captain Sheppard of the Terran Spaceship Vella Gulf,” the CO said.

  “Wait; who is this?” General Skeeeeezzis asked. “What are you doing on our network? This is a secure transmission!”

  “I am the commanding officer of the Terran ship in orbit,” Captain Sheppard said. “I am interrupting your conversation to give you my terms. They are simple. There are two foreigners on your planet. One of them is an Aesir by the name of Nightsong; the other is one of our countrymen whose name is Lieutenant Commander Shawn Hobbs. We will send a shuttle down to the surface of the planet. If you return the two foreigners to us, we will then negotiate your surrender. If you don’t return the foreigners, we will destroy your towns until you do; I will instruct my forces to look for likely places your queen might be and will have them destroy those places first. It’s up to you; give us the foreigners, or you will lose your cities and your queen.”

  “You’re bluffing,” the general replied. “You wouldn’t lay waste to our cities, as you might inadvertently kill the people you are looking for. If they are so important, you wouldn’t dare!”

  “Perhaps not,” Captain Sheppard replied. “However, is that really a risk you are willing to take? Even if we don’t destroy your cities, we will certainly slag your facilities on the moon.” Captain Sheppard motioned to the OSO. “Resume graser fire on the moon.”

  “Continue kicking the shit out of the moon, aye, sir!” the OSO replied in a happy tone.

  “You have got to make them stop!” the colonel exclaimed. “The base cannot take much more. We have already lost atmospheric integrity in several places. We will be completely open to space before much longer, and with most of our shuttle craft destroyed, we will be unable to return our survivors to the planet.”

  “You have failed the queen,” the general replied. “What value are your lives?”

  “What is the value of your life, general?” Captain Sheppard asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Solomon, can you determine where the general’s transmission is originating from?”

  “Yes sir, the signal is coming from a military facility on the largest continent. I do not know whether that is where he actually is, though. He may be somewhere else and just using that transmission facility. Standby.”

/>   There was a pause as Solomon traced the signal through their network, then the AI added “The general is at the facility, as well. I found a map of the base in their computer network; I am displaying it on the front view screen.”

  “Good,” Captain Sheppard said. “OSO, slag one of the buildings on that base. Pick one with maximum psychological value.”

  “Graser firing,” the OSO noted.

  “Sir, it is done,” Solomon said. “The general’s house has been destroyed.”

  “You asked what I meant by the value of your life, general,” Captain Sheppard said. “Your house has been destroyed. We can kill you at our discretion just as easily. Perhaps we should do that right now; your replacement may be easier to reason with.”

  “No…um…I don’t think that will be necessary,” the general replied. “I will, however, need to talk to our officials as I do not know who or where the individuals you are looking for are residing.”

  “That is not factual,” Solomon transmitted. “The communications logs indicate Captain Nightsong checked in with their space command establishment upon his arrival. At a minimum, they are aware of where he landed.”

  “Well, it may be true someone from this organization talked with him,” the general replied, “but I couldn’t tell you how long ago that was or who it was that spoke with him. I will need some time to research those details. I’m sure I can have an answer for you by mid-day, our time, tomorrow.”