Second SF Story
Chapter 4
Decent into Hell!
?They are destroying my shipyard!? Malice screamed out in uncontrolled anger.
Most of the servants had already fled the thrown room. Non of them wanted to be anywhere near the Empress right now. She could have ordered the death of anyone of them to help vent some of her anger.
On his knee?s at the front of the stairwell that lead up to the thrown the Admiral in charge of security for the Capitol of the Taiidan Empire quivered in fear. He had seen personally many of his colleagues executed for petty things. This time though it was quite serious. Not only had the Evil Kushan terrorists caused incredible damage to the surface of Dablin 3 with their orbital bombardment of all the military installations. They were also now about to destroy the largest shipyard in the Empire. If only the Royal Fleet wasn?t engaged with these vile forces at Dablin 3.
?My Empress, we are doing everything we can. All our security forces that didn?t go with the Royal Fleet have been destroyed.?
The Admiral continued. ?We have sent out calls for help to all ships in the Quadrant. We do expect help to arrive soon.?
Malice glared back at the Admiral. ?They had better. I am of the mind to order the execution of your entire family. This lapse in our security is inexcusable.?
The Admiral threw himself prone at the bottom of the dais. Shaking violently he was reduced to begging. ?Please Majesty, we will fight them off. We won?t let the Empire lose our precious shipyard.?
?Get out of my site you pathetic worm. Don?t come into my presence again until we are victorious.?
Guards descended upon the prostrate man and drug him from the thrown room.
Turning to her personal porter she gave the command that turned his blood to ice. ?Have that pathetic worms family arrested. Also arrest the families of all the officers on his staff. See to it personally that they are executed. This treachery will not go unpunished. After this is over I want him and his officers executed.?
The porter bowed low and ran off to carry out the horrible orders. It was pointless to try and talk her out of it because he would have met the same fate.
Malice observed the porter leave and thought to herself how she could be surrounded by such fools. If only Hal was here. She stopped her train of thought. That?s it. Standing up suddenly she shouted. ?I want a message sent to Supreme Admiral Hal. He is to make haste and report back to me immediately.?
Sitting back down after officers were scrambling about to carry out her orders she relaxed with an evil smile on her face. My Hal will know what to do; he has never let me down before she thought to herself.
Fector let go of the trigger and the mini-gun quieted. As the smoke cleared dozens of bodies could be seen littering the corridor. TWA and his team had run headlong into a damage control party in-route to some unknown destination.
The four Marines in front reacted instantly dropping six of the Imperials, with short controlled bursts. Seeing that the Imperials outnumbered the Marines at least 2 to 1 their training took over. The four Marines retreated back down the corridor with the rest of the Marines hid around corners and watched them retreated past them.
As typical of the faint the Imperials became emboldened at seeing only a few Marines retreating they pulled their side arms and raced down the corridor after them. As the 30 Imperials passed some unmarked line all hell broke loose.
Fector and one of the other heavy weapons operators appeared at the same moment in front of the Imperials with their mini-guns blazing. Also the rest of the Marines peaked around their corners and fired controlled bursts taking down target after target.
The Imperials had been sucked into the faint and trap maneuver the Marines had been drilling for over the last few months. The little firefight lasted not even 90 seconds and over 2 dozen Imperials bodies were scattered across the corridor.
The Marines in their professionalism didn?t even slow down to take stock in what had just happened. They were off again plunging deeper into the inner part of the shipyard. As the group moved with lightening speed they left a trail of bodies in their wake. Most of the killed Imperials hadn?t even know of the Marines presence until it was too late.
The hardest part for TWA was when the Marines did have to stop to allow the engineers time to set up some Auto-Sentries at key locations were large passageways came together.
?Auto Sentry 1 is firing,? said a little mechanical computer voice into TWA?s ear. Reaching down he keyed a few buttons on his keypad built into the arm of his pressure suit a little video fed popped up inside his visor. He could see what the camera back at the first sentry they had set up at the corvette was showing him.
He could see what looked like 3 or 4 Imperials in security uniforms dead down the hall from the gun. Saying to himself with a small laugh ?Gawd, I love these toys.?
The engineers finished setting up the 3rd Auto-Sentry. TWA nodded to them and ordered the Marines to begin moving again. He had to keep his men mobile. The faster they moved the better.
?What the hell does he think he?s doing?? Exclaimed Death completely shocked.
The tactical officer could do nothing but shake his head in bewilderment. Death looked back at the tactical display and could see Velcrox?s frigate breaking away from the main body of the SF forces.
The last 3 hours had been very stressful for Death. The SF fleet had managed to break away from their engagement with the Royal Fleet and had made a run for it. Normally he would have just jumped the fleet but they still had to keep the Royal Fleet busy to prevent them from returning to the shipyard.
The main engagement had been a very harry engagement but an intense one. By staying away from the large formations like the Imperials the SF ships had been more mobile and taken fewer casualties. Death?s task force had suffered the loss of 5 frigates and a partially damaged Missile Destroyer. They had destroyed 8 of the Imperial frigates and damaged another 4 ships that the Imperials had left behind when the chase had started.
The fleet had made a run for it. At full speed they had broken orbit and were on course for the first of the 2 moons in orbit of Dablin 3. It took a few minutes for the Imperials to reform up into their large formations and began their pursuit. Now the chase was on, Death?s fleet had a good sized lead over the Imperials but some of the ships had been damaged and the strain on their reactors was beginning to show.
If only he had a carrier in the group he could launch a rescue operation and evacuate the damaged ships and leave them behind. No such luck though, the die was already cast and he would have to deal the best way he could.
?Open a channel to Velcrox at once.?
?Yes Sir?? Channel open.?
?Velcrox what the hell are you doing? You know I ordered no hero crap.?
The image on the screen of the Ion Frigate with swarms of both Imperial fighters and SF fighters locked in combat was replaced with the visual of its bridge. Were once a nice clean and orderly bridge could be seen, now it was a scene of devastation. Consoles were blown, fire and smoke could be seen erupting from several stations. Bodies littered the bridge, only a few people were moving around.
Velcrox was kneeling over one of his fallen comrades. His uniform was torn and burned. Several gashes could be seen on his face where blood was flowing freely. He was also wearing a mask over his nose and mouth with an emergency breathing tube, supplying him with breathable air.
Looking up to the screen he stood up and responded. ?Admiral, that last pass from those bombers did us in. They hit the reactor cooling system and destroyed it. The entire engineering section has depressurized, non-of our engineers survived. Most of my crew is dead, and we don?t even have life support anymore. Fire control is down and the remaining air is to toxic to breathe.?
?The few systems that work say we are 10 minutes from a reactor overload.?
?OK, put the ship on any heading and get to the life pods, we will have the corvettes pick you up.? Death replied with a hint of desperation in his voice.
?Sorry boss, no can do. The corridor with all the life pods has been depressurized, we have no way off. Just get out of here sir. We aren?t going down without a fight.?
Death looked around desperately at his bridge crew. ?Is their anything we can do??
He was answered with dead quiet stares and sobs from a few of the officers. Realizing the gravity of the situation and becoming very somber Death faced the view screen. ?God speed Kiith brothers. You will be remembered in the Soban Kiith as Hero?s.?
Snapping off a salute Death added. ?Take as many of those son?s of bitches with you as possible.?
Velcrox nodded and closed the comm. Channel down. No words were necessary, this was his fate. He would meet it with head held high in honor. The SF had given him a home and welcomed him in with open arms. Like most others, his own Kiith had died on Kharak. He was proud to be a member of the Soban Force Kiith.
He moved to the helm and sat down to steer the dying ship. Looking around he saw only two of his bridge crew where still alive.
?Do we have any weapons left?? Velcrox asked, yet he already knew the answer?
The officer in question responded by shaking his head no.
?I didn?t think so. Direct everything we have left to engines. Ramming speed!?
The small frigate began to accelerate as her rear engines turned white. A trail of debris and smoke spewed from dozens of breaches in the hull. Someone observing the ship from a distance might even of mistaken it for a small comet.
Velcrox watched the enemy ships grow larger in his screen. He was looking for one of the bigger ships to ram. Space began to take on a cascade of colors. It looked very pretty however he knew it to be false because every flash of light was a weapon being fired at him.
As the tiny frigate entered into the firing range of the Imperial fleet, dozens of blasts impacted against the frigate. If Velcrox hadn?t of been sitting down already he would of wound up on the floor on his a**.
Small explosions rang through the ship making it almost impossible to hear anything. Velcrox was having a hard time seeing his view screen through the thickening smoke on the bridge.
?There!? Shouting out, Velcrox pointed to a Heavy Cruiser that was near the center of the Imperial formation. The immense size of the cruiser was intimidating, but Velcrox had no fear. He would make the bastards pay for killing his crew and SF brothers.
Punching the final command into the computer the frigate changed her trajectory to ram the Heavy Cruiser at full speed.
One of the assault cannons from the Heavy Cruiser reached out and impacted at the top most portion of the bridge of the frigate. Most of the ceiling above Velcrox disintegrated instantly leaving a massive gaping opening to space. The roar of air howling was intense and he felt his body leaving the deck and flying out into space.
Tumbling end over end Velcrox body desperately tried to take in a breath of air but all he got was hard vacuum. He could feel veins all over his body bursting and the cold was too intense to even think. After just a few seconds his body completely froze solid from the cold of space. The last thing he saw as everything in his vision went black was the image of the little frigate hurtling like a rocket into the giant cruiser.
Deaths watched on his view screen the last seconds of the little ship. Whoever was at the helm of the cruiser desperately tried to get out of the frigates way. The cruiser was just to slow. The point of impact was about 1/3 of the way down the front side of the cruiser.
The dense armor of the cruiser melted like butter under the incredible kinetic energy released by the impact. The view screen filtered out most of the resulting explosion but Death still had to look away. When he looked back he saw that the Heavy Cruiser was floating away in two different directions. The ship had been cut in two.
The back half of the Cruiser collided with a destroyer that was near it. The impact crushed the front of the ship and put it out of commission. It floated away in an end over end spin.
The front half of the Cruiser completely crushed 2 frigates off to the side and exploded.
Death was stunned, never would he have dreamed Velcrox suicide run would have caused so much damage and destruction. It was far more then he could have hoped for.
?That?s enough, get us the hell out of here. Signal the fleet, and recall the fighters. We jump now.?
Hyperspace bubbles formed over each of the ships as soon as the last of the fighters and vets had docked with the support frigates they all jumped and disappeared.
From the deck of his command ship the commanding Admiral of the Royal Fleet stood frozen and unable to move. The Kushan scum had gotten away and caused considerable damage to his fleet. He didn?t mind the loose of a few frigates but the loss of the Emperors Claw, the Heavy Cruiser was just too much. He would have to beg Malice?s forgiveness to save his own skin. She was not known for being the forgiving type.
The roar of gunfire in the corridors was deafening. It was a scene of complete uncontrolled chaos. TWA?s team had penetrated deep into the bowls of the shipyard. Bullets were passing back and forth all around him. The engineers were laid out prone behind him just around the corner. The station security had finally started responding to the Marine incursions in force.
He had no idea how the other 9 teams were doing but he hoped they were doing better then he was. For fifteen minutes they had been involved in a running firefight. Securing corridor after corridor they had finally ran into enough security forces where they could no longer advance.
He had to get them on the move again because right now they were sitting ducks for a flanking move. To make matters worse the Auto Sentry near their corvette was beginning to run low on ammunition. It had been firing continuously for the last 5 minutes. In another minute it would run dry.
Seeing no other choice he signaled the corvette crew and let them know it was time to get out of their. The Marines would just have to find another way off the station. It was a shipyard after all, there had to be another way off.
TWA ran down the corridor and swiftly moved to the hallway were the engineers were waiting for them. ?We aren?t going to get further into the shipyard. We are going to have to arm the nuke and get the hell out of here. We have 3 Auto-Sentries left right??
?Yea, but we are going to need all 3 sentries to guard the nuke.?
?I figured that, let?s get to it. Set up the nuke right here and then activate the sentries. Rig the sentries into the computer that if the sentries run dry it will activate the nuke and detonate it.?
?But we might not be off the shipyard by then! Are you mad??
?That?s a risk we are just going to have to take. We?re in a hurry now do it.?
The engineers sprang to life and started working on the nuke and auto-sentries. TWA raised his gun and walked down the side hallway were he saw a closed hatch. Walking up to it he opened the door and found himself facing about 3 dozen unarmed men. They all looked to be wearing rags for clothes, they were filthy and it was obvious from their gaunt looks that they hadn?t been fed very well.
He could see be looking at them that the Empire must be using slave labor to operate a large portion of the shipyard. All the slaves froze and stared at TWA. He had no problem shooting people but he was not about to start executing slaves.
After a moment on large man from the back of the group slowly advanced forward and kept his hands out in front of him too show TWA he was unarmed. He was an older man with gray hair and had a regal look to him like a man of authority. If he hadn?t been clothed in rags TWA would of mistaken him for a wealthy merchant or a Baron or Duke.
A couple of other men watched the older men advanced and moved to go with him. The man waived them off and came to stand about 10 feet from TWA.
?You are Kushan are you not??
TWA responded with a very slight not.
?I have never met you before but I have negotiated with your people before. A member of the Soban Force Kiith and I worked together for the good of both our people.? The strange man spoke slowly so he would be understood.
TWA tensed. ?What are you talking about? I am part of the Soban Kiith and you don?t look familiar to me.?
?Sorry, I shouldn?t expect you to recognize me. My name is Chain. I am or at least was a Senator from the Taiidan Republic. A person named Coitster from your Kiith helped me and a number of my colleague?s escape from our capitol that was under attack. He was piloting our ship until the Imperials captured us.? Replied Chain.
TWA lowered his gun and walked forward right up to Chain. ?Do you know where he is? We lost contact with him after he was captured. Is he on this shipyard??
Chain relaxed a little as he no longer had a gun pointed at him. ?He isn?t on the shipyard. We were all taken to the Imperial Palace on the planet below for interrogation. They separated us almost right away after they figured out who he was. Myself and the rest of us were shipped up here to work at this facility. I assume your clansman is still on the planet below. If you didn?t know he was here why are you here??
Two more Marines come into the room and saw TWA talking to the slaves. TWA saw them and held up his hand to let Chain know to hold on for a sec. ?Report.?
?Sir we are holding our ground but we are going to be overrun soon. Our motion sensors show that they are bringing in more forces to assault us and overrun us with sheer numbers. We have to get moving sir.?
?What?s the status of the engineers??
?Almost done, they only need a few more minutes.?
Turning back to Chain he asked. ?How many of your people are on the shipyard.?
Chain thought about it for a second and replied. ?About 40,000 of my people are here.?
?What!? TWA was dumbstruck. After thinking for a second he responded. ?Look there is no easy way to say this. We are here to destroy this facility. The Republic is on the verge of collapse. They need this shipyard destroyed.?
Chain turned white as a ghost. ?You can?t! We have 40,000 innocent people here. You must call off this attack. I demand it.?
?Sorry, I can?t. We have other teams onboard. Even if I had the authority to call it off its just impossible at this point. This station is going to be destroyed in about 1 hour. You are going to have to find your own way off this shipyard.?
Desperation could be heard in Chain?s voice. ?You can?t, it would take about a day for us to evacuate if we had the ships but we don?t. What are we to do??
?Save as many as you can get to escape pods, riot and capture some shuttles. Anything at this point what do you have to loose??
TWA reached down and picked up a pipe that was on the ground and tossed it to the man behind Chain. The man grimily nodded and instructed others to gather up anything that could be used as a weapon. A couple of the slaves started using some kind of intercom devices on the wall and started spreading the word about saving as many as possible. The man behind Chain addressed TWA. ?Can you please take the Senator with you? He must survive.?
TWA nodded. ?You must keep up with us. If you slow us down we will leave you behind.?
The engineers entered the room. TWA knew that the nuke was set and the clock was running.
?You stay with these men.? TWA said pointing to the engineers.
More marines entered the room. It was time to get going. ?We need to find a way off this station since our ride is gone. Plus men we know were Coitster is. This man says he is on the planet below in the Imperial Palace. I don?t know about you all but the idea of one of our own in the hands of the Imperials sickens me.?
At this every Marine in the room nodded.
?I know it?s a long shot but I intend to go down there and get him out of that hell hole. Who?s with me??
A cry went up from all the men and TWA knew they would follow him into hell if they had to.
?OK the bottom of this section is 19 decks down, we need to haul a** to get down there, hopefully we will find some type of transportation. Let?s move out.?
The Marines ran out of the room with the engineers and Chain in tow. All semblance of an orderly and methodical advance were gone. They were in a dead flat run. At this pace no one would be able to catch them from behind so no rear guard was set. They made it to the first set of stairs and descended down deep into the bowls of the shipyard.
Malone robbed his eyes. He was very tired. His mind had been racing since the start of the engagement. The hardest part was the waiting. They had lost contact with 4 of the teams, including TWA?s team. All Malone knew was that TWA had ordered his corvette to get back to the Carrier before the little ship was overrun by station security. This also meant that he would have to find another way off the station.
?Admiral, Split is reporting that Pit?s Black Knights squadron has destroyed the Imperial Destroyer and their two escorts frigates. They are resuming their sweep.? Malone nodded to his tactical officer as he finished his report.
The only thing that had kept Malone from climbing the walls from nervousness was the sporadic engagements with Imperial ships that kept hypering in to respond to the shipyards distress calls. His crew had done their job perfectly, each time a hyperspace bubble would form the C.I.C. would dispatch a wing of fighters and bombers to deal with them.
?Sir!? Shouted the tactical officer.
Malone made a beeline to the station and stared at the screen the officer was pointing at.
?Looks like they know they are doomed sir. We are reading hundreds of small life pods ejecting from the station.? Space around the yard was like a nest of insects trying to get away from the station.
?Admiral! Six of the teams are reporting in. They have placed the nukes and are detaching from the yard. Also sir they are reporting that throughout the station there are Taiidan Republic citizens being forced into slave labor on the station. They don?t know how many but they say at least several tens of thousands. They are rioting now sir.? The communications officer reported.
Malone walked to his command chair and sat down. He felt sick to his stomach, he knew that many people were going to die before this mission had started he didn?t however want the blood of the innocent on his hands. He had to push it out of his mind though, this war was just beginning.
If he was to be effective he would have to turn off the emotions. He knew he was being a cold-hearted bastard in doing so but war demanded that sometime.
?Time to detonation??
?Ten minutes sir? came the response.
?I sure hope more of our boys made it then 6 teams? Malone said out loud to no one.
?Come on move, its going to blow any minute.? TWA shouted down the corridor. They had made it to a small escape pod at the lower end of the section they were in. They found it by pure luck, a pod that had seats for almost 30 people.
?My God, I hope this works, it looks over a century old.? Fector commented with a less then inspiring tone.
Chain took a good look at the equipment as if trying to ascertain something. ?Try more like 300 years. This style of pod hasn?t been built for centuries. It?s going to be a bumpy ride, this model has no internal dampeners.?
The last of the engineers climbing in and they shut the hatch. TWA climbed into the pilot?s seat and strapped in.
?Come on old girl, you may be old but I bet you still have some juice in you.? TWA just hoped the little pod would still work.
The ship came to life right away as TWA hit the ignition switch. Everyone felt the ship disconnect itself from the station. They felt the transition from an environment with gravity to one without.
From his view out the front window of the little craft he saw ships and life pods streaking down entering the upper atmosphere of the planet below. He just hoped that some of the Republic captives had gotten away.
Everyone in the pod became glued to the back of their seats as the one engine the pod had roared to life. The acceleration was so quick and fast that the G-forces threatened to make TWA pass out. In fact several people did.
?Yee Haw! Express elevator to hell, going down.? Shouted Fector with glee from the back. Well at least someone was having fun TWA thought to himself.
The timer that was super imposed on the screen hit zero. A clear view of the shipyard was on screen. At first nothing happened then as if hell itself opened up internal explosions like Malone had never seen erupted out of the Gigantic Metal Mass that was the Imperials largest shipyard. Sections of the station miles wide simply ceased to exist.
Malone had made sure to move the two Carriers away from the shock wave zone that was expanding out.
?Admiral, we detect 7 detonations inside the shipyard. Over 60% of the station is gone.? The officer?s voice trailed off for a second then was replaced by a look of pure shock. ?Sir the yard is breaking up and falling out of orbit.?
Malone leapt out of his chair and watched the screen horror struck. The warheads should have destroyed enough of the shipyard so that most of it would burn up in the atmosphere. However 2 very large pieces of the station remained in tact and were going to hit the plant. Each piece was miles long, they were way too big to burn up.
?Damn it, if only more then 7 nukes could have been planted? commented Malone.
Malone knew that this was a risk. There was always a chance that some sections would survive to crash into the planet below, and kill Billions. They had also had no choice, the Empire had to be stopped. But was the price worth it?
?Recover all strike craft and get us the hell out of here.?
There would be serious repercussions, the SF had know that. Whenever you raise the stakes of a war, crap would always hit the fan.
The smaller of the two pieces struck the planet at over 25,000 miles an hour in the lower continent of the capitol world. The resulting explosion was equivalent to over 5,000 Nuclear bombs in the 100-Megaton range going off. The crater that was left was over 50 miles wide and put out enough ash in the air to block the sun for over 9 years.
The shock wave itself from impact spread over 2,000 miles out in every direction. As historians look back at the innocent it was determined those that died then were the lucky ones. Better to die quick then to starve or suffocate from the ash.
The larger piece struck the largest ocean in the Northern Hemisphere. Even though it hit the ocean it was like hitting land. The miles deep ocean simple evaporated on impact and bedrock was thrown into the atmosphere. The resulting tsunami that radiated outward in all directions was the stuff of nightmares. The wave traveled several thousand miles per hour and peaked at over a mile high as it neared the shoreline.
Most people were oblivious to the wave, not that it would have made a difference anyway. 30% of the Northern Hemisphere coastline disappeared and hundreds of millions of lives were snuffed out in one fell sweep. Whole island chains simply ceased to exist. Hundreds of mile?s inland from coastal regions flooded.
The wave made it to within a dozen miles of the Imperial Palace.
The Gauntlet had definitely been thrown down.