Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 31
“What the fuck!”
That was Maxwell’s voice. He was alive.
Tetsuya ran to the edge of the landing pad, looked down, and saw that Karklosea and LeBoeuf combined their psionic powers to forge a strong purple, glittering force field that protected the team as they walked up the wall using their magnetic boots. Around the Johannes Kepler’s vertical walking team were the falling rods and bodies hit by them. The still-screaming bodies and heavy rods crashed into the cultists on the beach below, who were firing upward at them. The falling bodies and rods squashed their bodies into a grisly paste that seeped slowly across the beach’s sands.
Tetsuya backed up and gave the Johannes Kepler’s team the space needed to finish scaling the wall. After Karklosea and LeBoeuf climbed to the top, they extended their hands to pull Miles up. Miles yanked Chevallier up next, then Karklosea grabbed Maxwell’s hand and pulled him to the rooftop.
The team glared at Tetsuya with narrowed eyes. He didn’t blame them for not trusting him anymore. “The transport is empty,” Tetsuya said, gesturing to the craft behind him. “Let’s get the aluminum rods onboard.”
Miles and LeBoeuf did the honor. She used her telekinesis with a left-to-right wave of her hand. Like a magical witch, half the aluminum rods levitated off the surface and floated into the transport’s rear storage cargo area. Meanwhile, the space marine picked up a rod to the sounds of the gears in his exosuit wheezing and slid it into the transport. Naturally, LeBoeuf’s method was faster, so she placed most of the rods inside. She gasped when the last aluminum rod entered the transport and fell to one cybernetically augmented knee.
“Give me a second,” LeBoeuf said, heaving and panting. “I’m tapped out.”
“I take it we don’t have that return trip then?” Chevallier asked her.
“I can’t teleport anyone until my mind recovers,” LeBoeuf grumbled.
Tetsuya snorted to himself. Their objective was to replace the tungsten rods inside the transport with aluminum, then get out while Ereshkigal’s men reloaded a satellite above with what they thought would be tungsten. The ambush wasn’t supposed to happen, and neither was LeBoeuf stressing her mind with heavy usage of her psionic powers to keep the team alive. LeBoeuf was their ride home and couldn’t provide it until she got some rest.
“Now what?” Miles asked.
Tetsuya spun around and glared at the transport full of aluminum rods. A transport with a dead pilot and nobody else in the depot coming up to take over, probably because they were all bloody corpses on the beach below.
“Well, we just killed the team that was supposed to perform the reload,” Tetsuya said. “Might as well do it ourselves.”
Chevallier looked at the transport as well. “Can you fly this thing, Ishihara?”
He shook his head. “Not very well. But being stuck on Kur for all these months gave me plenty of time to read up on the equipment Ereshkigal’s cult uses.” Tetsuya approached the transport’s side entrance. “Climb on in, everyone. It shouldn’t be too cramped.”
Tetsuya entered the transport’s cockpit and tripped over the dead pilot. He had forgotten about the corpse already. Miles, Karklosea, LeBoeuf, Maxwell, and Chevallier followed and crouched in the rear cargo space where the rods idled. Tetsuya cracked his knuckles, shut the cargo’s rear hatch, its main entrance, then prepared the ship for launch.
The transport’s thrusters fired and blazed six plumes of blue and white flames, lifting the vehicle up and off the seven-story building sitting in the middle of a small, deserted island. They had been airborne for five minutes and didn’t come close to crashing into the ocean below. So that was good. He could fly the damn thing. Grabbing the transport’s flight controls, Tetsuya angled the vessel up and passed through the protective dome barrier above. He wondered why the shields would allow any ship, enemy or not, to pass through but nothing else. Whoever designed the towers needed to take them back to the drawing board, because it was a flaw that allowed Ereshkigal ships to land in the cities uncontested.
As the transport ascended and into the night sky, Tetsuya accessed the satellites’ network and located the one above Deltris that was pounding the city’s shields with rods from orbit. The satellite hadn’t changed position. It suspected nothing of the transport. As far as it and the various ships in orbit were concerned, the transport was nothing more than a friendly ship coming up to resupply their weapon.
A beep had pulsed midway into their approach to the orbiting satellite. It was Chevallier’s communication headset pinging her with a call from the Johannes Kepler. Chevallier accepted the message, and Tetsuya listened as he continued piloting the transport.
“Chevallier, what’s your team’s status?” It was Foster’s voice.
“We’re done here,” Chevallier said, replying to the audio-only transmission. “But LeBoeuf is tapped out. Coming home the hard way.”
“Define the hard way.” Foster didn’t sound impressed.
“We’re in an enemy vessel right now,” Chevallier said. “After we deliver the fake rods to the satellite—”
“I thought we were going to allow them to do it?”
“We kind of killed the pilots.”
“Well, hurry up.” It sounded like Foster sighed. “According to EVE, that satellite just spent its last rod and will be expecting a reload.”
And that was bad news.
“Damn,” Tetsuya snorted.
“That didn’t sound like a good ‘damn,’ Ishihara,” Chevallier said to him.
“No, it wasn’t,” Tetsuya replied. “If the cultists think this transport has been compromised, which it has, they might order another transport to make the reload . . . or.”
Chevallier leaned closer to him. “Or?”
“Alert,” EVE’s voice played over Chevallier’s communication channel. “A second satellite is moving to position itself above Deltris.”
“Or they can do that,” Tetsuya grunted and eyed his console’s display, listing the location of nearby satellites. “Looks like they’re moving a satellite to cover the one currently above Deltris.”
“Faster, man!” Maxwell bellowed.
The transport drifted through space and slowed when the satellite spun around and latched onto it. Reloading the satellite with rods was a simple automatic process. Once Tetsuya figured out how to signal the satellite, that was. The satellite clamped onto the transport, and the ceiling slid open. A tractor beam pulled the rods out from its cargo hold, lifting them up and out of the ship like magic while flipping them vertically into the satellite’s firing tubes. The team in the rear compartment moved away from the tractor beams capturing the rods. They were inside the transport’s cargo storage area after all. No need to get dragged up and inside the satellite as well.
Tetsuya’s console beeped a confirmation message to him. The reload was complete and successful. He returned to the transport’s controls, waited for the satellite to unlatch itself from the transport, then soared away.
“Tell your captain that we’re finished here,” Tetsuya said.
Chevallier tapped her headset and relayed his message. “We’re done here, Foster.”
Above the curvature of the planet Qurialla, the second satellite EVE detected slowly drifted toward a position above Deltris. From orbit, Deltris looked like a web of white lights on the ocean darkened by the night skies.
“If we reloaded the satellite,” Miles said, glaring at the viewscreen. “Why is that satellite still moving?”
39 FOSTER
XSV Johannes Kepler
Deltris Airspace, Qurialla, Nudross System
February 25, 2122, 21:39 SST (Sol Standard Time)
“We’re done here, Foster.”
Those were the words Foster had been waiting to hear Chevallier say. It was 21:39, six minutes until the Bladebacks arrived. The Johannes Kepler flew circles above the city of Deltris but could not leave the city’s borders. They couldn’t while a killer satellite was in orbit taking shots at the city’s shields and ready to switch targets and blast the Kepler out of the sky should they leave the protective shield. Foster hoped the aluminum rods would work. Getting hit by aluminum traveling at the speed of light still sounded like a rough experience.
“Mr. Chang,” Foster said, spinning the captain’s chair to face the helm.
Chang’s fingers raced across his console. “I’m on it, Cap.”
The Johannes Kepler’s thrusters flared, and the ship angled upward to the skies, brightened by Omega Centauri’s stars. Foster cringed when she looked at the tactical hologram. A second red dot representing the second satellite was still drifting across the globe of Qurialla, and it was minutes away from hovering above their location.
“Why is that satellite still moving?” Foster asked.
Chevallier’s audio-only voice replied over the bridge’s speakers. “You know, I just asked Ishihara the same thing.”
“Ishihara, what’s goin’ on?”
His reply came via the speakers. “I think it was because we took too long to make the reload. I’m not exactly a qualified space pilot here, and it took me a few minutes to get into space and then figure out how to send the reload command to the satellite.”
The Johannes Kepler performed a steep vertical climb to the stars, its aft thrusters ejecting a long, blazing tail of blue and white flares. It almost looked like a rocket ship blasting off into space from yesteryears. Going straight into FTL or sublight was risky. Too many ships were near Qurialla’s orbit, duking it out for control of the planet. Then there was the original satellite in orbit. It fired its guidance thrusters to hover above the Kepler while the second one moved into range.
“Should we turn back?” Chang asked.
“This is our only chance to escape,” Foster said, shaking her head. “Keep pushing, Mr. Chang.”
The compromised satellite angled its launchers at the rising Johannes Kepler and acquired a weapons lock. She hoped the plan would work. The satellite fired, but only bits of slagged aluminum and vapor touched the Kepler’s overshields. The satellite expelled a second round, but that rod disintegrated when it hit the Kepler. Meanwhile, the other satellite drifted into range. Foster eyed the tactical hologram and the countdown timer that ticked away. It was the estimated time for the second satellite to float into an effective weapons range.
Five seconds.
Four seconds.
Three seconds.
“Almost there!” Chang yelled.
Two seconds.
“And.”
One second—
And then the timer moved in reverse, two seconds, three seconds. The Johannes Kepler punched through just in time to escape and accelerated from Qurialla’s gravity well. The newly arrived satellite spun around to target the fleeing Kepler, plowing toward the massive battle near Qurialla’s orbit. Their timer started to countdown again.
“Time to say goodbye to our friends,” Foster said. “Fire the railgun.”
“We won’t hit it from this range,” Williams said.
Foster grinned. “That’s fine. Tolukei.”
The Javnis nodded and shut his four eyes to focus intently.
The Kepler’s railgun heated up and fired a continuous salvo of slugs into space. Tolukei’s telekinetic mind gripped each fired round, swerved them around the Johannes Kepler, angling them toward the satellites behind, and sent them through the orbitals. The first rounds hit the satellite dead on and sent it spiraling down the planet’s gravity well. A second and third round struck next, blowing it up and spreading its debris down to the globe behind. The remaining rounds skewed toward the side and shredded the second satellite to pieces, sending blazing debris tumbling to the planet’s atmosphere.
According to EVE, it’d take another ten minutes for another satellite to move around Qurialla and target the Johannes Kepler. The ship and crew were safe for now. After passing a small blockade of Amphibian destroyers and corvettes loyal to Ereshkigal, the Kepler drifted to a safe position to execute an FTL jump, then signaled Chevallier’s team on their captured transport to do the same and follow behind. Chang didn’t make the FTL jump.
“Looks like Kur and its accompanying ships showed up after all and are on approach,” Chang said, studying his instruments. “We still planning to hijack a couple of Ereshkigal’s ships and ram Kur with it?”
Hack a ship from Ereshkigal’s fleet, then slam it into Kur. Foster almost forgot about that plan; the last few hours had been stressful. She was only concerned about one thing, leaving before the Bladebacks arrived. Kur’s arrival changed the situation. Leaving now would force the team to leave behind an opportunity, shutting down Kur once and for all.
“We do indeed, Mr. Chang,” Foster said. “Change of plans. Take us to Kur, slow and steady.”
“You got it.”
“Be advised, Captain,” EVE said calmly. “Bladeback ships are now entering the Qurialla sector.”
“We gotta take this chance now that Kur is right here in front of us,” Foster said. “If we split now, it might be months before we have this opportunity again. A lot can happen in those months.” Addressing the rear bridge workstation, Foster asked. “Penelope, please tell me your trojan horse virus is still an option.”
Penelope operated her terminal as three holo screens curved before her face. She shook her head, and that wasn’t something Foster wanted to see. “Only the ships we encountered at Apolnar were infected.”
Foster clenched her right fist. “Damn it.”
“Now, now, that doesn’t mean I can’t work my magic.” Penelope typed furiously on her console’s keyboard. “Get us close to this vessel here. I believe it was at Apolnar at the time of our battle there. I’ll remotely hack into it and use its network to spread the trojan horse virus to one of the Bladeback ships then ram Kur with it.”
“Couldn’t we just use the ship you plan to hack to do that?” Chang asked.
“Needs to be a big boom to cripple Kur,” Penelope said. “Either multiple ships or one large ship, according to Tetsuya. As it stands, I can only detect one cultist ship infected with my trojan here, which isn’t very large. These Bladebacks, however, are clearly overcompensating for something considering the size of their ships. It’d be faster and easier for me to take control of a Bladeback ship or three and ram Kur with them.”
“Then that’s what we’re going to do,” Foster said. “Penelope, guide Chang to your target.”
The Johannes Kepler, bathing in light from the stars of Omega Centauri and Milky Way shining across its hull, dove into Ereshkigal’s main attack fleet. Amphibian battleships still loyal to the Qurialla government opened fire with multiple beams that slammed into enemy ships’ shields, creating a blinding light show of colors. A squadron of Bladeback strike crafts returned fire. Primate frigates turned their gun cannons toward the Kepler and released a never-ending salvo of tracer rounds. It looked like hundreds of yellow lines were trying to cut a swathe through the twirling Kepler as it pushed to the ship that Penelope highlighted on the tactical hologram.
With the MRF active, the Johannes Kepler, with its reduced mass, became a more challenging target for the Primates and Amphibians of Ereshkigal’s cult to strike. The Johannes Kepler was soaring above ships, diving below, veering to the left, diving again, and firing its particle cannon at smaller Bladeback interceptors.
And then an alert blared.
“Ah, shit!” Chang gritted his teeth.
“Alert, Flight Lieutenant, incoming torpedoes,” EVE reported.
“I see ‘em!”
“Tolukei, Nereid, handle the torpedoes,” Foster ordered.
The torpedo ships came out of left field, having dropped out of sublight. The Johannes Kepler evaded the first three torpedoes, then Tolukei and Nereid’s minds took control of the rest. Tolukei and Nereid either swatted the torpedoes aside like flies or guided the Kepler’s fired railgun rounds and sent them through the warheads, destroying them with a big burst of light. Chang only had to worry about maneuvering the Johannes Kepler away from the encroaching ships making up the bulk of Ereshkigal’s fleet and their beam weapons. EVE’s calculation gave Chang the recommended flight path to take, and Chang’s skill at the helm pushed the Kepler closer to its target, closer to the ship Penelope kept smirking at.
At a distance of 299,792 kilometers to the ship, the Johannes Kepler entered the minimum distance needed to send data transmissions to a target with little to no network lag. Penelope got to work. She glared at her hacking holo screens, brightening her face with yellow and red light.
“I’m in.” Penelope’s grin widened. “Keep us close to this ship to minimize signal lag. I might be able to speed this up if you approach it by another 100,000 kilometers.”
The enemy ship stopped firing. Minutes later, it started moving on its own because Penelope hacked into its drive and propulsion systems. Penelope controlled the ship and ordered it to fly close to the Kepler. The enemy vessel looked almost as if the Kepler lassoed it with an invisible rope made of a network connection. Chang guided the Johannes Kepler back into the fray and made a hard burn toward the Bladeback ships exchanging fire with Qurialla’s battlegroup.
Foster winced at the scattering debris the Johannes Kepler veered past. The wreckage of those ships wasn’t there a moment ago. The Bladebacks were pulverizing the ships loyal to Qurialla. If the last Qurialla-loyal ship fell, Foster was certain the Bladebacks would not make the Johannes Kepler’s escape easy when they searched for a safe place to make an FTL jump. The Kepler’s shields, now down to 23%, were proof of that. She hoped she had made the right call to stay and fight when the plan initially was to retreat.
“Standby,” Penelope said. “Spreading the trojan to the Bladeback ships now. Okay, backdoor installed.” She cracked her fingers.
“You in the Bladeback’s network now?” Foster asked.
“Oh, I most certainly am.”
