The Inferno Pt.II
Qar’il was observing through the enhanced view of his command tower, and watched as the hunter drones slowly released the Hellworlder ship. They were a clever little invention of his, designed specifically to compensate for the Prophet’s much slower FTL speeds. This was the first time the High Vicar had ever used them since their development and he was very pleased with their performance, though they should have snared the Hellworlder ship much sooner.
The ship didn’t seem like much, it was miniscule in comparison to the Prophet of Fire, though most ships seemed insignificant when compared to the Prophet. The Hellworlder ship had a sleek knife like hull coated in a very handsome coat of grey paint, and its main weapons seemed comparable to the main weapons of Mulka Battleships. Its shape vaguely reminded Qar’il of something he had seen on old fragmentary video clips within the heritage hall, a collection of ancient books, weapons, and artifacts from before the home world was decimated. It reminded him of old naval vessels built and used by most clan navies before the advent of space travel. It’s hull was dented and warped in many places, and there were two nearly identical holes in its hull. The weapons platform just above the ship’s main Ion engines had clearly been shot out, and that handsome gray paint had been marred in many places by some sort of strong corrosive acid.
All these wounds ruined its exterior image but filled Qar’il with a deep seeded respect. For each wound was proof that these Hellworlders had gone through the flames of retribution and had come out stronger for it. It wasn’t everyday a single ship out witted an entire fleet many times over.
The High Vicar felt uncharacteristically charitable “Communications, broadcast an open channel to that vessel. They have earned the honor of knowing our names.” Qar’il ordered without turning back to the seated officers behind him.
It took the Hellworlders a long minute before they accepted his mercy, and Qar’il began to wonder if their antennas had also been blown out before the image of a human female appeared on the glass before him.
The female had pale skin, and slightly different facial features than what Qar’il was used to seeing from humans. She had hair as black as Mulkara’s void, and her eyes felt like daggers as they pierced him with their hateful glare. Curiously one eye was as dark as her hair, but the other was red like the Prophet Mu-hileen’s fire. A curious anachronism, for a being to have both the hostile blackness of Mulkara and the warm glow of Mu-hileen.
The female didn’t bat an eye at his appearance, and showed nothing but unending contempt for his existence. “If you intend to gloat I don’t want to hear it” she barked in the lowly words of the Mulka.
Qar’il hated the sound of the soulless words, an artificially created language designed to fit all and none at once. He had a passing curiosity in Terrans and had chosen to honor their species by learning their tongue, “there is no need for us to use common” he spat the last word with contempt “I respect your people enough to learn your language.”
The look in her eyes shifted slightly, and he saw that despite her natural hostility she appreciated his attempt at diplomacy. “Then why did you call?” she asked in her own tongue.
“You and I are enemies, and there is little that can amend that fact. But I have grown to respect your tenacity in surviving this long, I wish to offer you our names.”
The little tufts of hair above her rakish eyes dipped low, “I had heard a rumor or two about the significance you Kruhur place on names, I didn’t think it was true, it seemed too Bushido for a race like yours.”
Qar’il felt irritation at her casual insults. “While I respect that you have no way of knowing, do not use that name again.” He said calmly.
Her head tilted to the side “What, Kruhur?”
“Yes, that is not the name we call ourselves. That is a word the Mulka stole from our language, and used in place of our true names. In our tongue Kruhur is a vile and dirty word, and I would think that if anyone could appreciate how it feels to have your own language weaponized against you it would be you, Hellworlder”
Comprehension dawned on her “Kruhur means demon in your language.” She surmised.
“A more appropriate term would be monster, or abomination. The Mulka thought it was a more appropriate term for us instead of our true names. We refer to ourselves formally as the Uma-kar Draxori, or The people Born from a gentle World, Draxori for short.”
“So the name of the first deathworld, is the Gentle World?” she asked, Qar’il nodded, and her lips pulled back exposing her teeth. A sign of aggression in many species, including his own. But for the Simian born Humans it was a sign of friendship, or in this case amusement. “How ironic.” She mused dryly.
Qar’il felt that if they had not been enemies he would have grown fond of this female, she had a certain charm to her. “Indeed, now onto business. You and I will fight here, and only one of us will leave alive. If you should live I would like for you to hold my name, and my ships name. And should you die I would like for you to tell Mulkara who had bested you.”
Her head tilted to the side “I take it that Mulkara is a death god of some sort?” she asked, and Qar’il nodded. “I see, then when you see the Devil you will also need to tell him ours.” She said with conviction.
Qar’il didn’t know much about Terran religion, so this Devil was foreign to him, but he made a mental note to look into it later to try and honor her death.
Qar’il stood to his full height and let the female view his full magnificent stature, “I am Qar’il, son of Vaugh’il, of the clan of Il. I am High Vicar of the Draxori and captain of the Prophet of Fire, named for the Prophet Mu-hileen who united and guided our race after the homeworld was shattered.” His voice rebounded around the chamber, and he heard the young officers behind him salute their holy leader.
A single sleek black tuff of the females eye hair rose higher than the other, but whatever that facial expression meant Qar’il never got to learn. She stood up and rested a hand on the blade by her hip “I am Astarte Maiden’s Daughter. Daughter of Lucile the Undaunted, and Saint Mary the Maiden. Captain of this ship, the Astaroth, named for the archdevil of Hell, demon of knowledge and law. And this-” she said withdrawing the blade from its sheath, its steel was well crafted and almost looked black. “-is Tenken, meaning divine punishment.”
Qar’il felt a shiver run down his spine at the gravitas and authority in her voice, and he considered calling off the whole battle and instead offering her a hand in friendship. But she had shed far too much Daxori blood for her to ever be forgiven. Ah, if only they had met sooner.
“Are you ready to die then?” he asked his foe.
Her eyes darted to something off screen before turning back to him “You have already been very generous, might we have a short pause to gather our wits, its been a rough couple of days for us?”
The request was not required of him by the honor of Mu-hileen’s decrees, but after their pleasant conversation he felt like they had earned a small reprieve. “You shall have it” he said before a he gave a hand gesture for his aids to cut the feed.
~~~*~~~
Astarte flopped back into her command chair as the screen went blank, “Have you thought up a way for us to get out of this alive” She asked her lieutenant.
The request for a chat had been an odd one, but Astarte saw that the Kruhur, or Draxori, weren’t attacking yet, so she had decided to humor them. What had followed was a very intriguing conversation with the leader of the Draxori, and a long pause in hostilities that gave her crew time to scan the Prophet of Fire and come up with a plan. She had extended the conversation as much as what seemed natural to buy her crew as much time as possible.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
“Maybe” Karega said “though as chivalrous as they seem to be I doubt they would appreciate it.
“Fuck chivalry, I just want to get us out of this alive.” She growled.
He smiled “That’s what I thought you would say. Good news is that the Prophet has been around for a while, and there’s plenty of documentation on the thing. About a century ago it broke past a blockade and used that massive cannon to glass several major Union cities and stations. It prompted the creation of the very expensive Type 8 battle ships, and was eventually pushed back into the void. This thing usually travels with several cruisers on its flanks, and their absence is the only reason we have a shot right now.”
Astarte listened carefully while she observed the Prophet of Fire, to her eyes it looked sort of like a giant whale crossed with a pill bug. It had a massive central cylindrical hull that acted as a barrel for the oversized pulse cannon, and from the videos of it firing on Union worlds Astarte saw that it had incredible range and could maintain the beam for up to a minute. Extending off the main hull were eight ‘relatively’ thin wings that were connected to a sturdy building sized joint that let the wings turn and tilt to spin the Prophet’s central cannon around at its target. It was basically a giant cannon with maneuvering thrusters and a shield. No wonder it needed to use drones to chase down its prey, otherwise it would never be capable of engaging a faster target like the Astaroth.
“Please tell me there’s an exposed exhaust vent that leads to the main reactors?” she asked hopefully.
Karega laughed despite the overwhelming odds facing them “No luck there. But it does seem to lack any secondary armaments, which means we only need to worry about the main cannon, our best chance is to close the distance between us. The closer we get the more energy and time it will need to use in order to point itself at us, from there we need to hammer one or two of the eight wings. If we can do that then can cripple its turning speed in one direction, that’s when we will have the best chance at getting away. We can use that weakness to hopefully escape its warp jamming field, with our anti-distortion field we can escape both the Prophet and its drone armada.”
Astarte considered his plan, looking to identify any weak points fatal flaws, but before she could think for very long all the wings on the Prophet extended outwards in a way that made it look like the ship was stretching before they returned to their ready position. “It seems like our hosts are growing bored” Astarte noted dryly “Ahead full, we’ll focus on wing section five and six. Get in as close as we can, but be careful not to get within physical striking range. As fast as those wings can move around we might just get swatted like flies.”
Her crew had their marching orders, and everyone knew exactly what to do. Astarte was pressed back into her seat as the ship lurched forward at full speed. They were starting at a disadvantage; the Prophet of Fire was already very far away and had been pointing right at them from the start. If Qar’il had been felling less generous they could have opened fire on the Astaroth from the very start and been done with everything. Astarte ordered that the shields be shut off in order to send more power to the Ion engines, any hit from that cannon would be instantly fatal with or without shields so she might as well not waste any power.
The ship swayed one way, then another to avoid being in the center of the cannon’s aim, but at some point Kat had miscalculated the Prophet’s turning speed and for the brief moment they had been within its radius they fired. Blinding light lit up the whole bridge before the screens darkened like welding goggles, they had just scraped by on the outer edge of the beam. But the danger wasn’t over, instead of cutting off the beam of power the Draxori held it and turned their ship to try and hit the Astaroth. They diverted away from their charge towards the Prophet to avoid being hit by the beam, and even then it was just barely enough. For a little under a minute they ripped through the void of space with a city killer sized pulse beam chasing at their heels.
But during the desperate dash Astarte noticed something odd about the Prophet. When it fired such a powerful beam, it needed to drop its shield, or rather it had to refocus the shield to prevent the heat of the beam from melting the barrel and the main hull. And Astarte came to a horrible realization that the only chance they would ever have at hitting the Prophet’s wings was when it was firing at them. Which meant they would have to use themselves as live bait in order to get a chance at hitting the maneuvering wings.
The beam faded out and the ships sensors detected a vast amount of heat being dissipated within the Prophet’s wings as radiators that ran the full length of the wings began to glow red. Not wanting to waste any more time the Astaroth turned out of its evasive maneuvers and shot straight towards the enemy, Astarte explained her plan to the crew, and they clang onto every word she said. They were not afraid that her plan would get them all killed, because it was either that or oblivion. The odds that they were facing right now left no room for uncertainty.
They closed the distance between them and the Prophet of Fire, and to boost their maneuverability the Draxori extended the wings outwards and began to reposition the cannon.
“Gunnery, I want you to disable the automatic cut off for the pulse cannons. Bring up the heat sync monitors and keep them from overheating, we need to focus as much power as we can in each shot to get through that thick armor.” Astarte ordered.
“Sir, that will put us at risk of losing the cannons.”
“I am aware. But what choice do we have?” she countered.
The gunnery officer nodded his head and pulled up the monitoring software. The heat being radiated out of the wing sections slowly dipped off and the Astaroth detected a building heat within the Prophet’s main hull, another blast was coming. And they were ready for it.
They momentarily let the Astaroth get very close to the danger zone, and the Draxori took the bait and fired on them. The moment they fired the Astaroth darted away from the beam and focused all their fire on the joint of wing section five. At first the armor on the joint seemed to be tanking the heat put out by their pulse cannons, but after a few seconds of continuous fire they began to notice a change in the metal. And after thirty seconds it seemed the Draxori also noticed, because they prematurely cut the pulse cannon beam and brought their shields back online. But it was too late, the damage was done. And as the rapidly cooling metal began to contract something went wrong and a massive crack in the joint formed, permanently ruining the whole joint.
The engines within the wing went out, and now the Draxori were stuck with a several thousand-ton useless limb that drastically decreased their ability to turn to their port side. One down, another to go.
The Astaroth came about and charged to the starboard side of the Prophet, where their turning speeds was unaffected. They lured the Draxori into another premature shot, and instead of skirting along the edge of the Prophet they did something even more dangerous. With the heat of the beam nipping at their heels they pulled the bow of the Astaroth up, and preformed what could only be described as a spilt S maneuver in space. They didn’t have any downwards gravity, or air resistance to aid in the maneuver, and the arc they followed didn’t perfectly follow the movements of a proper split S, but for their purposes it was close enough. They pulled above the beam and rolled onto their side to narrowly avoid its power, the beam swung past them and the Astaroth straightened out to take a clear shot at wing joint number six.
The Iowa class battleships had been designed with a tight turning arc and speed in mind to avoid enemy torpedoes, and Astarte had taken that philosophy and applied it to her own craft. It didn’t often come in handy, as most battles were usually decided by pure kinetic advantage and shield capacity, but when it did Astarte was glad to have it every time. They fired full bore at the joint and Astarte wished they still had the aft pulse canon mounts, or maybe some missiles, either of those would have come in handy right about now.
The Draxori realized their mistake and tried to fight their own inertia and turn the beam back towards the Astaroth, but they soon realized that they were too late and cut out the power to the beam and brought their shields back. The joint had only begun to heat up and Astarte cursed to herself as an impenetrable shield fell into place, just a little longer and they would have had them.
They were pulling out of their attack run when a bright explosion lit up the bow, the ship shook and claxons screeched to life. As fast as the ship was traveling they had no time to react or change course as the shrapnel and shattered hull tore through the ship’s conning tower. The screens displaying the ships main deck went black, and Astarte was left staring into a blank as she wondered ‘what the hell was that’.
“Damage report” she said, but something within her already knew what had happened.
“We had a cooling failure in one of the cannons, engineering reports three men died when a cooling pipe burst. We’ve lost the forward pulse cannon mount and we’re losing atmospere.” Kat relayed as she listened to reports from various parts of the ship.
“Does that mean we’re down to only one gun?” Astarte asked as the room around her began to dim.
“No, it was hit by the shrapnel. It’s not gone, but its not responding to any commands, and its not recharging, I think its power supply was damaged in the explosion.”
“Can it be repaired?”
“No.”
The ship made another hard turn as the Prophet turned its cannon on them once more, but Astarte couldn’t bring herself to care. The world around her faded away and she felt the insidious grip of despair crawl its way across her heart. Their last chance at escaping this hell alive had just gone up in flames, after all the miracles she and her crew had accomplished with this ship, and it all ended after a single cooling failure. Astarte felt betrayed, after coming this far the Astaroth couldn’t hold herself together for the last hurdle between them and survival.
They had no weapons left, and the Prophet still had the ability to cut off their escape.
“Hey Kar.” Astarte said to her friend and lieutenant. “What’s better, to run from death, or to face it head on?”
He turned to her, and he knew her well enough to guess what she was getting at, but this time he didn’t object to her latest insane plan. “All things must die, why fear the inevitable? Even stars will burn out, so why turn away from it when you know its your time.” He said serenely.
With his reassurance Astarte had the confidence to make the final command decision of her life.
She had always believed that when death finally came for her she would feel cold, but that wasn’t the case. As she looked into the expectant faces of her comrades she only felt a warm glow burn in her chest. This was what love felt like, she loved her crew and this ship. She loved their dogged determination, and their kind smiles.
She reached over a clicked on the ship’s internal PA system, and managed to keep her voice calm and even as she addressed her crew one last time. “We have lost our last means of escape. All we have left to wound the enemy is this ship, and the power of her engines. Our deaths are assured, the only choice left is how we face it. Death is the only sure thing in life, and all that ultimately marks a persons existence is how they face it. Are we to turn tail and run when death comes for us? Or are we to face it head on and take these bastards with us?” she wanted to say more, but her voice choked, and she felt tears roll off her cheeks. “It, it has been an honor to be your captain, I hope that in the next time I will have the honor of fighting alongside you all once more. Maybe next time I wont lead us into a death trap.” She flicked the switch on her chair and leaned back.
Karega didn’t say anything to her, and neither did anyone else. They all knew what they had to do.
“Lieutenant, please bring the ship to condition six.” She ordered.
He nodded and turned to his control panel and punched in his override code. There was one last prompt that asked if they were sure, a final fail safe before they used the last entangled atom in their quantum communicator to let the rest of the fleet know that they had fallen. This would have been done automatically once the power to the storage unit was cut off, but Astarte wanted to personally let them know that they had fallen. Karega confirmed that they wanted to move to condition six and pressed the final button. The alarms and claxons went silent, and for the first time in long while the bridge was perfectly silent.
They knew what had to be done now, once the Prophet opened fire they would turn the ship right towards their center and hit them with the only weapon they had left. The Astaroth herself. Hopefully they could hit them with enough force to bring the Draxori into the jaws of hell with them, but just to be sure they would also detonate their remaining two reactors to maximize their the final blow.
Astarte closed her eyes and took in one last breath, just as an annoying beeping sound broke the silence on the bridge. She opened her eyes and glanced at the blinking light on her command chair, a comms request from an unknown source.