Allison and the assembled forces under her command exited the wormhole into a nightmare. Her Babu’s ship was damaged from heavy plasma fire. The bridge was completely gone. Most of their ships and fighters were disabled. The primitive surplus LSR fighters and ships were trying to engage a super-hive and its escort of two normal hives. Allison brought up targeting for the memorial torpedoes. The fighter bays were open on the super-hive. She opened comms.
“We cannot detect the field, but we can assume it is big enough to encompass our fleet. Do not approach. It will take at least ten minutes for my weapon to take effect. Once we see power returning to our ships and fighters, we’ll know we can engage the hives. I am going to engage the super-hive.”
Allison cloaked. The Sal’nash had recognized her fighter immediately and moved to intercept with the entire fighter compliment. Allison flew towards the super-hive and spoke to Bit.
“Bit use the remaining drone wing to provide support to our squadrons. Keep trying to reach Babu’s ship.”
She swept down towards the super-hive which was on the orbital plane of Ratoa. She saw her HUD starting to get squiggly and realized she’d entered the Queen’s field. She could feel a ringing in her ears. She waited until the last second to launch and pull out. The black memorial torpedo, a self-propelled coffin, was unaffected by the Queen’s disruption field. Allison pulled up and checked to make sure everything was working. Her cloak had failed, and she was turning into a target. It wouldn’t reengage. It was the most sensitive piece of tech on the fighter, so it was no surprise it was the first system to get perma-fried. The shields powered on after she hit the control a few times.
“I think things are about to get dicey.”
She bobbed and weaved luring the Sal’nash fighters chasing her into the line of fire of the drone wing and her fighter cover. The bug’s single-minded pursuit of her was suicidal. They were still firing to disable. Her shields were not happy with her. In fact nothing on the starfighter seemed to be happy. There were a whole lot of systems flashing warnings. She’d taken several direct hits without shields. She would definitely need new armor after this mess. She kept leading the Sal’nash on a not so merry chase through vicious weapons fire.
Allison was so concentrated on staying alive she hadn’t monitored the progress of her weaponized nanites. Her first clue things were progressing was when she heard the comm net come to life with multiple damage reports and requests for assistance. The more durable systems of the capital ships flared to life and they began a full counter attack on the hives. Allison called out to Bit to open a channel to the squadrons that followed her.
“Alpha, Bravo, get onto the flagship and help repel the boarders. The rest of you commence attack runs on the two smaller hives. The big one is already dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.”
The hives and Sal’nash seemed to be in disarray suddenly. Apparently, the unified mind controlling them had other things she had to be concerned about, like trying to stop her ship and crew from being devoured by a plague of nanotech locusts who only got more numerous with every morsel they consumed. Sal’nash drones of all types were jumping out of the super-hive trying to save themselves only to slowly suffocate in the void of space. There was no enemy to fight, no prey to hunt, just invisible death consuming them.
Eventually the plasma weapon emplacements started to blow outside the side of the super-hive. They sent chunks of the organic hull flying. Some burning up in Ratoa’s atmosphere other propelled out of its orbit.
Allison didn’t waste too much time watching the slow agonizing death she’d just unleashed. She used the disarray caused by the loss of the queen to exact a terrible toll on the fighters that had once been attacking her. She was aided by the Ratoan military starfighters. The Sal’nash started recovering from the mental shock. By that time the System’s Alliance Fleet was able to re-engage. Allison knew she needed to land for emergency repairs, so she disengaged and headed to the flagship.
The super-hive started to break up as the organic bindings keeping the hull in one piece were devoured by the dreadnought sized swarm of nanites. They started to spark and disintegrate when the auto-destruct sequence triggered. Bit sounded frightened when she spoke.
“Allison… what have you done?”
Allison angled towards the Alliance Flagship.
“I did what I needed to, to give us a fighting chance…”
Allison trailed off leaving much unsaid. She would never apologize for it, but would she ever forgive herself for creating something so horrific? As she got closer to her Babu’s ship she got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. They said deaths came in threes… was this the third? She was cleared for landing in one of the undamaged bays. Bit was heavily damaged and no good to fight in her condition the shield interlink was fried, so were the antigravs. They had lost enough fighters that there was no trouble finding space. She hopped out and a landing crew was already scrambling over the fighter. The crew chief saluted her.
“Ma’am, we’ll do what we can to get her into fighting shape.”
Allison saluted him.
“Do not touch starboard AM torpedo launcher, there is a volatile proto-type and if it gets out it will destroy this ship. Focus on the antigrav so I can assist with search and rescue please. She will take all standard Athena parts. I need to go find someone I’ll be back.”
Allison rushed to the battle command and control for fleet operations. If the bridge was damaged or destroyed command of the ship would be shifted there it was in the core of the ship. She was praying to God, the Dark Mother and anyone else she could think of that her grandfather was in C&C where he should have been if he was coordinating the attack on the Rebel holdouts. She swore. It was like the Sal’nash hit them at the worst possible time for the League and the Alliance, like they were tracking fleets. She hurried her pace. The ship had suffered heavy damage and exposure to the field had taken some of the crew down.
She swiped her wrist and gave her Special Forces Command Override code to force the doors to C&C open. Two guards went to stop her but recognized her and stepped back. She looked around. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw her Babu’s sector XO, a rear admiral. If she was here, then her grandfather was injured or worse. She turned to leave to head to the primary sick bay, but she heard the rear admiral call out.
“Lieutenant Wanjala, report. How did you know we needed help?”
Allison walked up to the woman. She was obviously a genesis pod kid. Once they were in their sixties it was hard to tell if they were sixty, or a hundred and fifty. Sixty for a one of the longer-lived humans was the same physical age as thirty for a twenty-first century human. Allison saluted.
“Ma’am. We were sent into League space to attempt to rescue survivors from a Sal’nash attack. While on that mission I found intel that indicated Ratoa was next. I am sorry it took us so long to get here. I was hoping to get a warning to you. When I could not raise you on wormhole comms I came here to provide support.”
The rear admiral nodded.
“Were you successful in your rescue mission?”
“Aye ma’am, one hundred and twenty-seven civilians and staff rescued. One hive was destroyed. Ma’am, I did not have permission or orders to come here. I will accept any punishment the SA determines is necessary, but I want it noted those that followed me here were just following my orders as mission commander, they should not receive any discipline in this matter.”
Allison had one burning question. She wanted to ask it. She decided to be patient. The admiral looked Allison up and down.
“What weapon did you use on the super-hive? It was slow acting but quite effective.”
Allison wasn’t sure what to say. She could tell the truth, that wouldn’t end well. As of now no one knew what was in the other torpedo and likely no one had time to care in the middle of repairs to get fighters ready in case of attack.
“I am not at liberty to say, ma’am. The president would need to determine you should be read in. It is a weapon of last resort that I used with a memorial torpedo from the medical station because I knew its targeting systems would be unaffected by the disruption field. It would be best if we do not let them know I weaponized one of their harmless technologies. The Synthlin would be very offended. As per the president, she can confirm, any mention of this weapon or the delivery device should be kept out of all official logs. Any recordings should be deleted. The other one I have in my fighter should not be scanned, looked at or interacted with. The weapon system is an unstable prototype. It will destroy the ship.”
The admiral nodded.
“Understood Lieutenant. I will not look a gift horse in the mouth. If you hadn’t arrived when you did we would all have our brains leaking out of our ears and Ratoa would be in the process of being devoured. I will be putting you in for a commendation, along with your entire team.”
The admiral’s eyes softened.
“I can see a question in your eyes, we have a proper process for this that is tried and true but given who you are and your access you will find out yourself. I am sorry, Allison, your grandfather is dead. He was on the bridge during the initial attack. We didn’t even have shields up. The ship Chaplin and counselor can provide support for you. Please do not tell your family. We have people to make this notification that are able to provide the support required. I’m only telling you, so you don’t find out on your own. He was a great man. I know he was proud of you until the end.”
Allison felt tears falling from her eyes. The last words she’d ever spoken to him were in anger. She’d refused to wave to him. Answer his calls. Now she would never hear his voice again. Her hand was shaking when she saluted the rear admiral.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ma’am. My fighter should be ready for me to re-engage the enemy and assist with search and rescue.”
The admiral looked at Allison like she thought the sixteen-year-old might be insane.
“Take some time, lieutenant. You just lost someone close to you.”
Allison shook her head.
“Those people followed me into this mess, I am not going to let them down, ma’am. My Babu would want me to keep fighting. I can mourn for him later. We have a job to do.”
The rear admiral shook her head. She wanted to order the teen to stand down, but they were down to ten percent fighter coverage and there were still two active hives. Not to mention the Rebels could take advantage of their weakened state.
“Good hunting, Lieutenant.”
Allison rushed off. The rear admiral watched her go. Allison made her way to the hanger. The liquid metal armor had been replaced and shiny new hexagonal antigravs had been installed on the bottom of the fighter. The crew chief saw her get into Bit and kneeled down beside the cockpit.
“We have replaced all the ordinance in the fighter and your drone wing. You have an AM torpedo in the launch tube. It’s primed for high yield. The cloak is still fried but your shields are working.”
Allison gave him a thumbs up and asked control to queue her up for a launch tube. She was focusing on the fight ahead instead of what she’d lost. It was the compartmentalization she was so good at that those closest to her worried would one day fall apart and she would just snap. A few minutes later she was back out in the thick of it.
Was she alright to fight? That was a matter of debate. Did she want to make the Sal’nash burn in an antimatter explosion? She sure did. One antimatter torpedo would not be enough to end a hive. It would take several. Or one of the anti-capital ship ones from a bomber. She used her somewhat intimate knowledge of the hive ships to target a point just aft of the forward main plasma batteries. It would take out a hanger and if there was any justice it would cause a secondary explosion when the plasma containment breached in forward and starboard plasma batteries. If she were precise she might even do more. The Sal’nash were in chaos and were just fighting as individuals their all-consuming need to target Allison seemed to have vanished with the queen. Allison locked her torpedo onto the target coordinates and launched it. She flipped her fighter using thrustors and whispered to herself.
“Burn.”
Her precision was rewarded with a massive explosion then the starboard side of the hive was ripped apart by plasma blow outs. The plasma containment failure chained through all of the batteries on the starboard side of the ship. The hive was still in one piece, but she’d halved its weapon’s capacity. If only they were as easy to destroy as they had been in the simulator. She flew over the listing hive as it struggled to right itself after her stinging blow. She targeted the other hive while weaving through smaller plasma turret fire from the port side of the hive she’d just hit. She hovered her finger over the second nanite torpedo. She could end it in one shot but then… she flipped it over to conventional ordnance and launched a volley of missiles into the forward plasma battery on the starboard side of the second hive. She barely escaped the ensuing ball of blue energy as she breached the sacs behind the plasma launcher.
She flew low over the hive blasting at it with her particle beams and plasma gatlings. She was aiming for turrets and air locks. Weak points. She pulled up and noticed a bomber heading for a run at the second hive she pulled away and slipped into position above him. She unleashed a withering barrage of energy along their attack vector blowing up several defensive turrets. When she saw a glob of plasma shoot up from a short range launcher she fired at it. She wasn’t able to dissipate its energy entirely she flew into it. The bomber’s copilot was speaking on comms.
“Almost there, almost there. Torpedo away, pull out pull out.”
Allison pulled up, but the bomber was damaged she realized he was going to get caught in the blast so grabbed him with her tractor beam and ripped them both away. The bomber’s frame wrenched as the gravity from the hive pulled against her tractor beam. The pair narrowly avoided being engulfed in the white-blue explosion that tore through the top of the hive near where their intel said the queen’s chamber would be. The hive started drifting towards its partner. Allison released the bomber and spoke to them on comms.
“Gold Three head to the carrier and call for search and rescue. You’re not landing that thing anywhere there is gravity. I think I broke it. Sorry.”
Gold Three, who was an older reservist, laughed.
“You did but I’m glad to be alive.”
Allison cleared their path towards the carrier of Sal’nash fighters. As they pulled away from the hives the one Gold Three had hit collided with the second hive. The plasma projectors breached on both ships engulfing them in blue flames. Plasma didn’t need oxygen to burn. The comms officer from the flagship sent a wide-comm.
“All squadrons clear the field. We are going to commence bombardment.”
Allison saw the admiral behind him do a countdown with her fingers then pointed and said.
“Full barrage, all main batteries, all turrets, all missiles. Do not stop firing until the barrels melt or the hives are dust.”
The System’s Alliance fleet had apparently recovered enough from the disruption field that they were able to get their main batteries online. They hammered the hives that were locked together with everything they had. They angled their mass drivers, so they fired into open space and not towards the planet. The newer ships had particle beams that were just a massive weapon running through the center of the ship. The hives began to disintegrate under the rain of destruction. Gold three who was still on comms with Allison cheered.
“Fuck yeah. Suck Alliance firepower motherfuckers!”
Allison was briefly elated. There was something to say for seeing human ingenuity at work. Seeing the full fury of an Alliance fleet was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. She had no doubt that had the disruption field not been present the Sal’nash ships would have been so much space dust before they could launch more than a few fighters. She looked at the remnants of the Alliance fleet. She was reminded of recovered images from an attack on someplace called Pearl Harbor. The fleet had been in a stationary orbit and pretty much as docked as they would usually get.
Her mind started to wander to the dead then she shook it off. There would be time for that later, for now there were stranded pilots and crews to rescue. She started her search and rescue efforts with Gold Three and his co-pilot. She felt responsible since in her haste to pull them out of the explosion she’d twisted the bomber’s frame so badly it would never land again. She flew out over and over again along with the other surviving pilots. There were so few pilots and starfighter’s left most of them were in the air for almost thirty-six hours before search and rescue efforts were called off. They had no more life signs in any of the rest of the craft that were still in one piece. Recovering the salvage could wait.
Allison was like the walking dead by the time she landed from her last sortie. Bit could have taken over for her, but she’d refused to rest. By the time she reached the bunk she’d been assigned she didn’t even get out of her armor she just passed out. It was better that way, if she was too tired to think, she wouldn’t have to think about all the people that had been lost, some of them under her command. Or the grandfather she had pushed away. If she stopped to think of it, it would break her because she would believe he died thinking she hated him. Thankfully those thoughts would come later. Because today, she was so tired she was unconscious. If she had dreams, she wouldn’t remember them in the morning. Or that was her plan.
She woke up in a cold sweat. She’d seen a pair of familiar red eyes staring out at her from the darkness of her bunk. Adrenaline was making her heart race, and she could a familiar power rising up in her chest. She shivered as a wave of cold passed over her. She called out with a cracked voice.
“Lights!”
Once she verified, she was alone that rising power subsided. She wasn’t sure what it would do here, but she was pretty sure the new commanding officer wouldn’t appreciate it. Her heart kept pounding. She looked up when her cabin door slid open. There was a full security team in armor with weapons drawn. They immediately lowered their weapons when they saw it was Allison alone.
“Are you alright, ma’am?”
Allison rubbed her face. She was very confused at this point.
“Sorry, just waking up, what happened? Do you need me?”
The master corporal in the lead looked around. The cabin was in disarray. Like a whirlwind had gone through.
“There was a minor explosion detected. We thought it was a Rebel agent. Sorry ma’am.”
Allison rubbed her eyes and looked around.
“No one here but me. As far as I know it was like this when I got here. It was dark and I passed out."
The master corporal motioned to her.
“Please ma’am, rear admiral asked us to escort you to C&C.”
Allison caught sight of herself in the mirror. It was not pretty. It was pretty horrific actually her hair looked like something out of a campy horror movie where she was the villain. She was ghostly pale.
“Like this? Can I shower first?”
The master corporal motioned for her to follow them.
“Sorry, ma’am. Admiral’s been on edge since the announcement. She asked us to escort you to C&C.”
Allison took the offered hand. He helped her up. She was stiff. She silently wished her unwelcome guests could cure that particular human condition. The admiral was still running the ship and the fleet from C&C. Of course she was, the bridge was literally gone. Allison saluted her. She was thankful C&C was a darker room; It hid her unkempt appearance.
“Lieutenant, thank you for your efforts. It is time for you to head home.”
Allison blinked a few times.
“With all due respect, what? You’re at twenty percent fighter wing strength across the fleet. You need me here, ma’am.”
The admiral nodded.
“You are correct, Lieutenant, I’ll forgive your tone. It has been a rough few days for all of us. If I had my way, I’d keep you on indefinitely. You are one of our most experienced pilots now. However, I was overruled by the board and council. Ever since the Empress of Ratoa declared you her heir there has been concern there will be an attempt on your life. I was resisting it but then with the disturbance in your section of the ship demanding a full security response, I have determined the risks of your presence outweigh the benefits.”
Allison blinked a few more times and tried to read a screen, yep, she could read it.
“What?”
Allison shook her head.
“Sorry, Ma’am, what was this about me being declared Empress Velda’s heir?”
The admiral frowned.
“Late last night Empress Velda held a press conference saying that the stress from losing her husband, and soul mate caused her to lose her baby. With no other choice, or options since the death of her cousin, she named you as heir. As you are the granddaughter of her late husband, of marriage… according to some old law. You are now the Crown Princess of the Ratoan empire. There is now a bounty out for your head posted by the Rebels. With the recent actions against you by the general, the board, council and empress Velda have deemed you too valuable to risk in this sector.”
Allison narrowed her eyes.
“Bullshit.”
The admiral looked annoyed at this point.
“Excuse me Lieutenant, is that how you address a superior officer?”
Allison put her hand to her mouth.
“Sorry, ma’am, I was referring to the Empress. Ratoan women don’t love anyone but themselves. Let alone men. No way she lost her baby, or maybe it never existed in the first place… psychotic bitch! She painted a target on me to protect my unborn aunt or she married my grandfather as an excuse to get around me marrying her son! That shriveled up cunt!”
The admiral calmed down but was still a bit shocked by the sixteen-year-old’s rant. Allison suddenly realized where she was and who was in front of her. She saluted.
“Sorry, ma’am, there is no excuse for my outburst, the Ratoan’s are our allies, I should be more respectful to their leadership.”
The admiral nodded.
“I’ll just forget we had most of this conversation, lieutenant. Grab your kit and launch with your drone wing. You are to head back to Eden Prime at all possible speed. Dismissed.”
Allison saluted her.
“Aye, ma’am.”
Allison rushed back to her temporary cabin and gathered her things. Dealt with her biological needs and headed to the hanger where Bit waited for her. She tossed her secure case into the rear seat and requested a tube launch.