Chapter 14: Mount Up

It was much later in the day. Inside the spinning ring of the Rampage, in one of the rooms, was a small gathering. Natch, still with a tourniquet over his damaged arm, Czarek, Minato, and Malachi all sat in an enclosed, dull conference room. Darin stood by one of the only two display screens mounted in the walls for all to see. The mounted metal table in the center of the room was simple in design, with enough space for only six chairs. A center projector had a glowing live-feed blue image of Captain Ruslan’s face and torso as he overlooked everyone in the room, including the two displays.

One of the displays showed data feeds, including a 3D map projection of the Hesik Expanse, marking the names of the stars, along with the red, pink, yellow, and orange dust filaments that filled the entire region. The other display showed the basic schematics of the Rampage before switching to the Theseus, sometimes alternating, or with one image showing a comparison of both ships.

The Theseus was somewhat similar to the Rampage, both coming from Earth. However, more of the former German and European lineage is shown through the brand-new warship. On the schematics, it was labeled “Ex-Bismarck,” the ship’s original name before it was rechristened the Theseus. This was similar to the Rampage schematic that showed “Ex-USS Jimmy Carter.” The Theseus was similar in size to the Rampage, both being around 250 meters in length.

With both ships, there were notable features that set them apart. For one, the Theseus’s hull was a little thinner, with a box-spinning module instead of the spinning-ring module on the Rampage. There was less in the ship’s rear engine and power module, but it also had weapon turrets. The front nose of the Theseus was shaped differently, consisting of a thinner, elongated, bulbous compartment, with the main ad hoc hangar facility located on the ventral side. The former torpedo tubes had been replaced with two semi-adjustable forward-mounted railgun turrets. The weapons on the Theseus were generally fewer but more current, with two heavy-duty planetary defense hybrid railgun and flak cannon turrets on the central ventral and dorsal compartments. It also had six ancient five-inch turrets mounted on the starboard wing strut, while the port side consisted of two small thruster nodules to counter the recoil. Various smaller CIWS turrets were mounted along the forward, central, and rear compartments. Unlike the Rampage, the Theseus also consisted of other launchers mounted on the opposite side of the ship’s forward nose section. Both ships carried the familiar blue flag of Earth, with the Jolly Roger flag at the bottom.

“Alright...,” Darin commented in his familiar Texan accent as he flipped his left palm up and tapped the skin. A blue button glowed underneath the fake layer of skin as his augmented ligament emitted a small projection. “Like any CEO, sometimes you have to just put all your cards on the table and see what works. We all know our recent newcomer, Kapitan Ruslan of the Theseus, our BREECA extraordinaire, who gets to grace his fine self before all of the Rampage’s chain of command. We’re happy to see that he’ll be a part of this operation.” He paused for a moment. “And in any case, for the folks that might get a little too rowdy for this conference, Natch still has his working arm to wrangle you out of this meeting...”

Darin turned to look directly at Czarek, which caused everyone else to slowly turn to look at the jump trooper. Dressed in his camouflage uniform, Czarek’s only response was to give a confused look at everyone, seemingly not understanding what the Captain was getting at.

“What?” Czarek held his arms out before he gave the playful smile. “Hey..., Cap, I swear to be good, honest.”

“Crusader Czarek...,” Ruslan’s voice echoed from the table. The stern look of the Russian officer was more than enough to quell any form of potential mischief from the jump trooper.

“ ... Aye, sir,” Czarek remarked with a hint of military professionalism.

“With that,” Darin called out, regaining focus from the group. “Let’s get this show started...”

The man tapped the button on his arm as the lights in the room dimmed a little bit. The map projection of the Hesik Expanse was adjusted to show the claimed region of the T’rintar and Shal’rein clans, with a small, one-light-year-wide neutral zone between them. Purple was used to highlight Shal’rein’s control, and green for T’rintar’s control. Each of the stars in the Hesik Expanse was labeled, ranging from generic Itrean number names to those with actual proper names to solar systems with validated purposes. Long-range observation outposts and military bases were outlined between both sides.

“As many of you know,” Darin explained. “We’ve been making our venture into the Hesik Expanse in hopes of finding potential places to lay our attacks in service of the Blue Buccaneers. This region is mostly barren, a place nearly forgotten by both sides, where resources are slim pickin’s between the two Itrean clans. I won’t have to go into any further detail on that department since most of you know already. Natch, Czarek, the Misses, and I went and had ourselves a little vacation here in the Hesik Expanse. During our stay, we managed to wrangle up a Shal’rein warrior, a turncoat, willing to help us out with an important target of interest.”

Darin tapped a button on his augmented arm, highlighting a brown dwarf star within the Shal’rein clan’s territorial region. The area the star was located in consisted of a heavy layer of filament star dust. It was so thick that it glowed brighter than most of the Hesik Expanse region. The word “Le’tilrin” was labeled.

“Among one of our most important missions here in the Blue Buccaneers is that we serve the T’rintar clan so that we can serve ourselves and to ensure humanity retains a seat in the political sphere of the Itreans ... ensure that we retain the voice of Earth. In order to do that, we need the glory, a victory that will be sung proudly from Earth itself.”

“The Itreans will never have Earth,” Ruslan said in his Russian accent. “BREECA stands against the T’rintar claim for our world.”

“My point exactly ... In order to accomplish that, we need to find places we can do the most damage. Here...” the cowboy pointed at the map. “We managed to discover an old, nearly abandoned outpost that is simply called ‘Le’tilrin.’ It was one of the many places colonized in the Hesik Expanse. While most of the outposts had been decommissioned and scrapped during the 200,000-some-odd years, both Itrean sides still have a few places of interest. Le’tilrin appears to be still operational with activity on the surface. It’s been mostly relegated to a secondary observation reserve post, although a heavy layer of star material has slowly shifted into that region, making it mostly unusable.”

A green line appeared, highlighting the dense portions of the dust filament. Like a giant sand barrier, it neatly engulfed much of the star system Le’tilrin was in. Its nearest communication satellite remained square in the center of it. The map system zoomed in to show a 2d flat overlay of the tiny star system. The brown dwarf star was so small that it was nearly little more than a massive gas giant, a failed star stuck as it desperately consumed the mobile dust layer around it in hopes of growing itself into something bigger. A single moon-sized planetoid no bigger than Luna, virtually as dead as its parent star, remained in constant orbit. Besides a much smaller, malformed asteroid that remained in an even more distant orbit, there were no other objects of interest in this star system. Le’tilrin was labeled as the single moon-sized orbiting object.

“From what we know,” Darin continued. “Le’tilrin has a direct link of communication to the planet Kun, the Shal’rein indigenous people known as the Helera’kun. From our captured turncoat, we’ve learned that she and her people don’t like the Gok’shinta very much, which has been controlling their world since the beginning of the Hesik Expanse’s discovery. Due to their mismanagement and neglect, many of the outposts that are still in operation here have never been updated with better security measures to prevent hacking. If we manage to secure the outpost of Le’tilrin, we can submit a direct message straight into the Kun world, filling their broadcasts with a nice, fully detailed message about mankind and all its positive attributes to current Itrean society.”

“Heh,” Czarek remarked with a chuckle. “You mean humanity giving it doggystyle to those Itrean ladies, knocking them up and ... ehh ... ummm...”

The jump trooper could see that everyone was looking at him, giving him an almost scowled look before the man recomposed himself and quickly shut up.

“To put it so bluntly,” Darin said. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“Nice...,” Czarek quietly said, nodding in very proud approval, holding a thumbs-up in agreement.

“The whole Itrean war taking place that is...,” the cowboy explained. “It’s changed due to them discovering humanity and us offering the cure to their disease. It’s become a propaganda war, where the T’rintar clan are always broadcasting that mankind and Itreans can get together and have boys again free of their disease. I’m sure you already know a lot about this, but the Aksren and the Shal’rein clans do everything they can to suppress it. We’ve encountered our share of Shal’rein that have already left their people behind just because they know the truth. If we can get ahold of Le’tilrin, borrow it for a few minutes, and broadcast our entire message packet and all, then all the Helera’kun will know the truth. Like throwing a match into a pit of fireworks, all you can do is watch and enjoy the show...”

“All they need is an excuse to fight,” Natch remarked as he looked at everyone. “I watched as Cay’reshen, the Shal’rein we fought on Denji’Kei, was happy to be taken prisoner by us. She knew the truth and her will to fight against us was broken. Her people are little more than slaves, treated as second-class citizens by the subclan that controls them. They’ve become so used to it that it’s corrupted their spirit, their hope, forcibly breaking their identity. No doubt, we will end up fighting the Helera’kun at this outpost, their defenses, but only because they have no choice. They must know the truth that will set them free...”

“As God wills it,” Malachi added. “Better to live free, knowing the truth that will lead to their salvation than to live under the tyranny of Satan, the father of lies.”

“Couldn’t say it any better than that,” Darin continued. “Of course, there’s going to be the question of how it’s going to happen. There’s going to be two hurdles for us in taking Le’telrin, both if we’re going to walk out of it unscathed...”

Darin tapped his augmented arm, which adjusted the two screens. The displays shifted to show two objects orbiting the small planet of Le’telrin itself. The box highlighted them to show the same two objects in a faded photograph image. However, the ship’s computer scanned the image, processed it, and artificially increased its resolution based on the provided databases. The computer then shifted the two purple objects and showed two sets of schematics of Shal’rein warships.

One vessel, the smaller ship with an almost lobster-like shape, labeled a Krit-Class scoutship, was a more recent design. Its frontal section had an armored head with a pair of large appendages connected on the front port and starboard sides. The claw-like arms carried both powerful grappling claws and autocannons to either tow vessels or rip into them. Its primary weapon array was its triple light railgun turret mounted on the dorsal section, not far from a large fin-like appendage, its main powerful scanner array. This entire frame connected to a small spinning centripetal ring and rear engine and power module. The vessel was roughly 2/3 the size of the Rampage.

“There’s two ships that are protectin the outpost,” Darin explained. “A scoutship and a dreadnought. From all the advice given to me, trying to lure these ships away from their assigned location is going to be impossible, especially with the given time frame that we have.”

“Yeah,” Minato commented. “The dust in the region is going to block out their comms for an hour or two. We’ve been able to narrow it down to approximately 0735 to 0840, an hour window when their distant orbital comm relay will not be able to send messages to the other systems.”

“An hour where they can’t call for help,” Natch added.

“Exactly...”

“And that’s when we’ll make our attack,” Darin continued. “Most likely, the defenders know about this state of vulnerability. They’re used to it, but it’ll change their attitude in how they respond to an attack. We won’t be able to fool them as we did with the Aksren clan and their past defenses, and staying around in the Le’telrin system too long will only drag every reinforcement to come chase us out of dodge for good. Instead, I reckon we’ll give the Shal’rein what they want and what they expect: a good ol fashioned brawl.”

“What?” Minato remarked in surprise. Even Natch showed a hint of concern on his face as he considered it.

“The Rampage and the Theseus thrashing it out against one scoutship and one heavy warship. We can win this...”

“Captain,” Minato questioned him. “No offense, sir, but that isn’t just a warship; it’s a titan among the Shal’rein fleets. I’ve read up in the Itrean ship histories. Old or not, that’s a fully laden dreadnought. It has more mass than both of our ships combined with more firepower to chew us both up for good.”

Darin looked at the other ship schematic. The Wyo’tark Mark 292 class Dreadnought was among the last of its ship brethren built during the Emphra War, well over 60 years ago. It lacked the particle beam weapons that its last-of-kin lineage would carry. From the boxy cylindrical frame was nothing but armor, lying upon more armor and mounted weapons. It measured 430 meters in length, being almost twice the size of the Rampage or the Theseus. Built for the larger Shal’rein, the vessel was a monstrosity, even if it wasn’t their largest ship produced at the time. The forward prow consisted of a lower compartment housing several light autoguns and forward-facing light railgun turrets on gimbal mounts. The mid-forward module section was a massive rectangular armored box used to house small miniguns and six pairs of powerful twin light railgun turrets, three on the port and starboard sides, jutting out like ancient battleship casemates. The middle module compartment consisted of the shuttle bay and two heavy-duty railgun turrets capable of smashing apart enemy vessels. The rear compartment consisted of two spinning centripetal rings and the power and engine module. Numerous heavy autogun twin turrets dotted most of the frame.

“A lot of firepower...,” Darin commented, giving an affirmative nod. “But divided up into multiple sides, Minato.”