Chapter 19: The Royal Rescue Attempt

“Where there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph.”

--Pierre Corneille

Linda watched as the groups boarded shuttles and and left the ship accompanied by the assault frigates, gunships, assault shuttles, and Mech Warriors. She hoped fervently they would come back safely and Razza’s parents would be saved. She transported to Command Central.

As Linda walked into the room, Andrea spoke.

“Linda the Coven are attacking our ‘bait fleet’ near the planet. The new Porquenta EMP mine the dogs can carry is being deployed. He even built a special harness for it. The dogs carry it to the ship, release the harness and make their way back here. We can knock out all of the enemy ship’s electrical weapons and some of the ship’s systems. The dogs are then safe to take in the Marines as before. They are deploying as we speak. The dog walks into the harness and it closes. The mine becomes massless and the dog drops it off with a quick pull on a cord that is placed conveniently in reach of his jaw. The mine attaches to the ship, so even if the ship moves it takes the mine with it. We will see how well it works,” said Andrea.

“Darn it, about half of the mines have been destroyed. The Coven people are picking up on the mines. The cockroaches are fast learners. Patton can you analyze the factors that determined which mines they were able to target, specifically I would like to know if there is a critical distance so we can vary mine placement.”

“They can detect the mines if they are more than ten yards out. All mines at that distance or greater are destroyed. I am transferring that information and new instructions to the dogs and marines. Our second wave is flying out. The dogs have requested us to hit the shields prior to their arrival as the shields slow them down both going in and leaving the ships, making them vulnerable as they struggle to get through,” said Patton, Jason’s original battle computer, now powered by a Porquenta AI chassis.

“Concentrate fire on the shields of the Coven ships in four-seconds. Patton coordinate with the dogs please.” Andrea said.

“I hear and obey, O illustrious Admiral!” Patton answered cheekily.

“I am pleased that you still know your place, but Porquenta has been a bad influence on you and you were already a scoundrel. I bet you and he, are already adding this to your simulations,” Andrea riposted with a laugh.

“He is a full participant through me in this battle and is watching closely as he does with all these battles,” Patton noted. “We are in constant contact and work closely together.”

“The cockroach shield has slowed the dogs’ passage by nearly sixty percent,” said Patton. “They also have a new cannon on some of their ships doing serious damage to our shields and it subsequently slows the rate of shield recovery. They are concentrating fire on one ship at a time. This is effective against the smaller ships with less shield resilience.

“Porquenta has downloaded shield firmware updates to all of our ships. The ships will need to retreat to reboot the shields. The reboot will take one minute. All ships not actively engaged are rebooting the shields,” Patton informed Andrea and Linda.

“Thank you very much Patton, and Porquenta!” Andrea said thankfully as she changed ship attack strategies. They began to move in to engage and then out. Those that were out rebooted shields before returning. Andrea looked carefully at her hologram which was blinking red. She saw an incoming Coven fleet that looked bigger than her own.

“Felicia, as you suspected, we have a second incoming fleet. Bring in our two monster Coven ships. They are bringing one of their own. It is time for you to join the fray! I see one of the Una ships has been disabled. That is a first! There are Coven boarding pods on the way. I have no doubt they and the Ghouls would love to acquire Una technology. Can you ask Celia to intercept them or help the Una ship? Good hunting!” Andrea instructed as she sent her frigates with ship killer cannons of Doom towards the incoming Cockroach monster ship.

“Weapons analysis shows the new Cockroach shields are reducing the effect of the Porquenta Doom weapon by nearly seventy percent! We need to kill the shields, or twice the number of shots will be required with the weapon of Doom,” said Patton. “The cannon is slow to charge so it is more efficient and faster to disable the shields.”

“That is very interesting,” Andrea said, “Is there any particular weapon that is performing most effectively to take down the shields?”

“I am processing that information and we are getting the ships to test fire our different types of missile and cannon,” said Patton. “I will be able to get that information to you within three minutes. The strategy of rotating the ships is effective and ninety percent of the fleet have had the opportunity to reboot the shields. The new shield configuration is very much more effective against the Coven weapons.”

“Andrea, the Cockroaches boarded the Una ship. We have instructed the Una to drop their shields so that our dogs and marines can reinforce them faster. Our people will be there in two minutes. Our fighters disabled two of the eight boarding pods,” said Patton. “The Cockroaches are attempting to board two of our cruisers that have been neutralized. I have dispatched dogs and Marines to reinforce the ship defenses.”

“The new mine procedure is working. We are disabling ships at a faster rate. The dogs report they are moving through the shields more easily. We have boarded sixteen enemy carriers and eighteen battleships. The heavy EMP device carried by a modified AI is destroying the electrical defensive weapons on the ships. The shield around the massive Cockroach ship is proving resistant to our efforts to bring it down. We are fighting a battle of attrition with that ship. Our own two large ships are yet to arrive. We sustained severe damage to seven battleships and four assault carriers. We have boarding parties that are in the ship but are making slow progress. The Cockroaches have saturated the ship with soldiers. There is only one available option in the short term.” Patton said.

“Go ahead what might that be?” Andrea asked.

“Porquenta and I have completed the analysis of our available weapons. If you want a quick solution we have one possibility. We have twenty missiles on board that transition to a dimension we could not use previously. These are a recent creation of ours facilitated by the Parzool tyrannosaurs. We have thirty-nine such missiles in the fleet, twenty on this ship and one in twenty other ships. You will need to use all twenty on this ship to stop the large Cockroach ship. We can hit engineering, power generation the bridge and the engines. We will need to approach the ship or the missiles will be much less likely to get to the ship. They will have too much time to use countermeasures.

“Our reserves and the large ships will be here in seven minutes. It will take us three minutes to get into effective range. Create the orders to cover us and we will do this. Warn our boarders to stay out of those areas,” Andrea ordered Patton.

“How much damage will we take?” Andrea asked him.

“Approximately seven to eleven percent,” Patton noted.

“What has delayed our reserves?” Andrea asked.

“My guess is they were ambushed. Communication was blocked from them. They sent a drone to inform us they were delayed. They were attacked by a smaller fleet than the one we are facing.

“I have received information from a new drone.” Patton said and projected the battle on the hologram.

“Admiral McDonald, was ambushed by a Coven fleet. She split her fleet into two hiding her massive ex Cockroach ships. She destroyed the attacking fleet quickly using the new missiles. As you know, her fleet was at Porquenta, and they have thousands of the new missiles. They are now on their way here but are not yet out of the communication blockade,” Patton informed her.

Andrea saw they were close to the critical position where she could fire her critical twenty missiles. Her flanking ships were taking heavy fire. She felt a sickening crunch.

“Missiles away,” said Porquenta.

They turned to get out of range of the behemoth. She could feel the impact of enemy fire as the ship shuddered. The battleship next to her broke in half as it took fire. Moments later they moved out of range of the big ship and its escorts.

“We sustained more damage than expected, fourteen percent, damage,” said Ship. I estimate the repair time will be two days. One of our engines is damaged and is losing power. We lost three cannons including our starboard Doom cannon.

“The Cockroach ship is losing power and is severely damaged. The job has been done. Boarding it will be much easier.

“The ship scanners show our reserves are one minute away,” said Patton.

***

The Pilot deftly flew towards an opening, that looked too small for them to pass through, into the Royal cavern. The pilot accelerated and Jason closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were in a cavern more dimly lit than those of the Collective. Jason saw the secondary palace of the Emperor and Empress as the pilot turned and banked towards it.

“I want to remind all of you my grandparents are the Emperor and Empress, my grandfather is Ergol Char and my grandmother is Nera Dera Char. My parents are also known as Emperor and Empress but are in waiting. My Grandfather was under too much surveillance to make any arrangements or communicate, so my father did it all in his name. My parents and grandparents are all geneticists. My father also runs all the Royal intelligence operations, but my mother comes from a very powerful family and she also has an intelligence operation of considerable sophistication. She is much like the Empress Alana, a powerful formidable woman not to be trifled with. My grandparents are very pleasant and easy going. They have superior intellects and are decisive people. They are strictly following an agenda set a long time ago. I have not been a party to any of the planning, until they became aware of the plot to kill them,” said Razza slowly.

The pilot made his way carefully towards the palace and then waited over a marked point in the inner keep. A cavity began to form and he carefully maneuvered the shuttle underground to land. Jason saw four large Cockroaches waiting.

The shuttle door opened, Razza rushed out shouting, “Daddy, Mummy, Grandpa and Granny I am so happy to see you at long last.” Jason saw them all huddling together, touching antennae. Jason and the others walked out of the shuttle, with their equipment. The shuttle returned to the ship. They each carried their equipment in two bags that had straps that straddled their backs and hung down like saddlebags. The bags were portals to transdim repositories. Jason used his own internal transdim storage. The bags did not interfere with the ability to fly.

Jason saw a Cockroach looking down from the top of the ramp. She scuttled away when she saw him looking at her. Jason was convinced that he had seen the traitor. Merken was right he knew the one.

Razza introduced the group to her grandparents and parents. They seemed as elated as her, but in a more restrained manner. Ergol Char the old Emperor moved over to Jason and stood looking at him for a few moments, he touched his feelers to Jason’s and then put a claw out to touch Jason’s neck next to his shoulder.

“Razza, Jason is as I suspected of the ancients, we knew so well who helped us in our earliest years. We never spoke to you, of these beings who gave to us without any expectation of return. I can feel that he does not know who he is, he knows about who he is, but he does not know who he is truly and he does not know his people.

“Jason, welcome and welcome all of you to our castle and our secondary palace in our exile following the coup. I hope one day we can entertain you more appropriately in the Royal Palace on Merpakt. Razza, it is clear to me you coming here is dangerous but may be a critical decision. Jason is not what I expected. His role is important. I see he changes you into what you will be. We must move on quickly as the traitor has no doubt informed the enemy of your presence,” said Ergol enigmatically.

Jason saw the traitor scuttling down the stairs. “My lady I believe we can escape in the shuttles; the tunnels may well trap us all. There are not many of us and we could all fit in one shuttle. I will remain behind to ensure the palace defenses permit you to get away,” said The Empress’s secretary urgently.

Jason withdrew the Ghoul sword cut off her head and cut her thorax from her abdomen then sliced the head into pieces. He wiped his sword on her abdomen and replaced it into his repository. He turned back to the others.

“Yes, he is the one,” said Dawood to his father flatly. “He is more than we expected. Now I understand the possibilities.”

Ergol and his wife nodded sagely. No one reacted to what Jason had done.

“Shouldn’t we check the security?” Jason asked.

“Now, that should not be necessary, it is all operational, but she thinks she has achieved her objectives. It is we who have achieved our objectives. Our few remaining people are well advanced into the tunnels, the Coven believe we yet await more family. So did the traitor. Unfortunately, two of the bombs are stuck tightly to one of the main support columns. Two other bombs were removed by the Hounds of the Apocalypse. I did not know the hounds exist, I thought they were the substance of legends,” said Dawood.

Aylot bounded up to Jason. The Royal Cockroaches stepped back in alarm, but relaxed when they saw him rub up against Jason happily. He appeared delighted to see Jason even though he had seen him mere hours previously.

“The legendary boars!” Kreb The Junior Empress said. She looked at Jason with interest, waving her antennae frenetically.

“He has already collected some of his army!” Nera said looking at Ergol as she led them quickly down the wide passageway.

“I should introduce you to a good friend of mine called ‘The One’,” he speaks in riddles and as enigmatically as you guys. He also talks about me even if I am the only one present,” said Jason.

Ergol, who was in the lead stopped suddenly leading to Razza crashing into him followed by her mother Kreb.

“You know The One?” Ergol asked Jason as he resumed moving quickly down the passageway. Jason saw that his antennae were also moving excitedly.

“I do indeed. I know him as well as one can with such an enigmatic character. I met him through one of his people who I met in transdim space, and who I carried around for some time, in a transdim pocket. He is a great friend and saved my life. I renamed them a little while ago to Montgomery and Winston. The Una are our close allies. We have got The One to speak a little bit more sensibly over time,” said Jason laughing at his memories of the pair.

“That is extraordinary,” said Ergol, “I last encountered him more than a million years ago. Your beau, Razza, has some extraordinary contacts!”

“You don’t know half of it, Grandpa. Wait ‘till you hear his story,” replied Razza.

They arrived at a solid wall. Dawood moved forward and put his front feet up on the wall. Kreb moved next to him and placed her front feet fairly close to his feet. With a deep rumble the wall began to move sideways and out exposing a dimly lit passageway extending into the distance. As they waited, Rover appeared next to Jason along with five other dogs and two very large boars. Ergol looked startled. Jason grinned and patted the closest dogs. The boars then moved to Jason for a scratch as they walked through to the passageway. Dawood and Kreb did the same maneuver on the inside wall and the door closed behind them.

“We are much safer now,” Ergol said. “We must move quickly to the second door. Once we are behind that door, they will have difficulty getting to us.”

Rover sent a series of images to Jason. He showed the special forces group leaving in a cloaked shuttle, then the dogs decided to try and dislodge the bomb with their teeth. They were assisted by the boars who attempted the same with the second bomb. The dogs managed to dislodge the first which they awkwardly put in a harness and carried off into space. A large Cockroach appeared in a doorway and rendered all of them unconscious with lightning strike. He disappeared back into the castle. When the dogs recovered five minutes later, they hunted him down and tore him to pieces. They found him at a control panel. Rover showed Jason what he was doing on the hologram. Jason saw the shield was partly down.

“Everyone I wanted to let you know what the dogs have told me.” Jason called out, “keep walking while I talk.”

“That must’ve been one of the Cockroach special forces who remained behind. I had a feeling there was someone there!” Dawood said. “That means at least some of the defenses have been disabled. We need to move quickly. I set the defenses so they are not disabled but reboot. I fear that will be too late to delay the enemy.”

They all moved rapidly down the passage that began to become narrower and more tunnel like. The tunnel began to turn at an angle to the right. They turned and walked for another five minutes.

“Hold it,” said Dawood. “This is the point.”

He and his wife repeated the same procedure and a much smaller circular opening became apparent. They were all forced to crawl through the aperture with some difficulty. Dawood helped his parents. Dawood and Kreb closed the door.

“The others went out a different way, that tunnel was much shorter. We moved the schedule ahead for the family and staff that remained, then as soon as they got here my wife sent her secretary on a fruitless errand that we had created previously that delayed her until they had gone. We told her we had put them in a conference room, which was the same procedure we used every year and kept her busy with us. By now I expect that they are safe on your ships. The Collective had cloaked shuttles hidden. Unfortunately, once they leave that area it will come under intense scrutiny and for that reason using the short tunnel and going to the same place would not be safe for us. They know you have arrived and know who you are. The cavern opening was recently placed under surveillance. The Cockroaches are waiting for the last fictitious family members to arrive. We can expect the attack on the palace to begin within the next few minutes. After you arrived the spies began to receive falsified surveillance from within the palace. The section of the palace where the family members are allegedly congregating is managed by an illusion. Let us move forward quickly. We need to get to the reinforced area as quickly as we can,” explained Dawood.

They felt a strong tremor through the floor and some dust fell down from the roof of the tunnel ahead of them.

“It has begun, move forward as fast as you can. They are using focused explosions to collapse the tunnels. We have a mile to go to the center. It is much deeper into the mountain. It has a heavily reinforced area where we can wait until we are sure we are safe. If they collapse the tunnel, we will not be able to escape without help.

“They are no doubt starting to drill tunnels to catch us,” said Ergol and speeded up. “They will soon be in the palace and will find nothing but bodies.

Jason found the pace difficult to sustain. He was amazed at the energy of the Royals. Suddenly they felt a powerful concussion. Pieces of rock fell from the roof of the tunnel. The tunnel was filled with dust despite the moisture in the air.

“We must run or we will not get to safety,” said Dawood.

Five minutes later there was a second concussion and the tunnel floor and walls shuddered. Cracks formed in the walls and the roof. Minutes later there was a further concussion. Jason could see large rocks break off from the roof to block the tunnel ahead. Without thinking he pulled out his sword and blasted the rocks out-of-the-way clearing the tunnel ahead.

They continued to run dreading the next explosion. Jason suddenly felt an unexpected anger rising a familiar rage. “Dawood, take the other Royals to safety I will deal with this scum before they kill us all,” said Jason between clenched teeth.

“Not without us you won’t!” Razza said holding his arm. “Hold hands quickly!”

***

“Let’s go people, this is it, go, go, go,” ordered Maj. Gen. Janet Malone to the crew of the assault ships. The bomb has gone off in the palace and all hell has broken loose. Our people on the ground are already under attack. We are going to have to go in hard if we hope to get to the palace or the rendezvous site.”

The assault tanks and gunships left the carriers in waves, led by the assault frigate of Maj. Gen. Janet Malone. Cockroach fighters attempted to intercept them both from the ground and from the Coven fleet. Janet saw three Coven cruisers leave the main battle and head towards them.

“Andrea those bastards are trying to hit us from behind, can you protect our backs as soon as possible?” Janet asked.

“I am onto it. I’ll be as quick as I can. How are you doing with those fighters?” Andrea asked.

“The fighters are much less of a problem despite their numbers. The big cruiser can do us serious damage. We have an ample screen of fighters and our assault frigates are shooting them out of the sky almost as quickly as they appear.

“This shield is holding well. We are only down to seventy percent despite persistent attacks and they rebuild quickly. We are waiting for the missiles and cannon from the surface next. We will need to have you pounding the ground defenses as soon as you can. We are hitting them with everything we have we are not making an impact,” said Janet just before her shield was hit by a pair of missiles taking the shield down to forty percent. “I spoke too early she muttered to herself.” She watched the automated counter fire take out the fighter and its partner. “Brace yourselves you’re going to experience an atmospheric jump.” They jumped to ten yards from the ground, moved a little lower to drop off the marine AI crates, moved forward and the ramps opened and out flew two heavy gunships from each, forty tanks, two hundred Mech warriors laden with two companies of Marines with their equipment, who packed every space on the ships even the passages. Janet’s heavy gunship made its way into the canyon that led to the cavern entrance. The frigates circled the area firing at every cannon and missile battery. They were attacked as they slowly progressed by fighters, gunships and tanks of the enemy. One frigate was badly damaged when it was attacked simultaneously by multiple fighters. It slowly rose from the surface to limp back to the fleet with half its complement of weapons no longer operational and an engine smoking. She saw two of her gunships and several tanks burning in the canyon along with ten or fifteen Mech warriors.

By the time Janet’s ship reached the canyon the surrounding defensive emplacements had been silenced and the barrier to the canyon shattered by heavy missiles carried beneath four of the gunships. It was wide enough now for the frigates to enter. She could see her forces taking heavy fire ahead of her. Behind her she saw a wave of supporting assault frigates along with heavy Mech Warriors flying towards the canyon entrance. She could see by the fluctuations in the shield that her ship was coming under fire. Every time the automated batteries saw they were under fire they attacked the attacking battery and destroyed it. She called in the dogs and the boars. She observed as wave after wave of attack frigates entered the canyon and into the cavern. She directed them forward to try and support the troops trapped in the cavern who were trying futilely to move to support the palace. The usual forms of communication were completely dead. Janet’s cyberwarfare group instituted their own communication block to prevent the Coven from communicating with each other to try and break the chain of control as was happening with them. She saw gunship after gunship dropping out of the air and onto the ground smoking or burning but disgorging their troops. She saw the troops carrying heavy weapons and missile batteries to support their fellows and take more of the battle to the enemy. She was delighted to see thousands of smaller Mech warriors enter the cavern followed by several waves of their larger brothers. The operation was proceeding according to plan, but they were meeting much heavier opposition than expected. Her adopted dog commander Zenith stood next to her.

She saw thirty enemy tanks on her port side and at least another hundred on the starboard side trying to flank them. She issued orders to her battle AI. The communication array aligned itself to her commanders and sent her commands. She watched Mech warriors racing to intercept the tanks followed by heavy gunships. Frigates screamed past above her. More and more gunships, tanks and frigates were pouring into the main city cavern reinforcing the troops. The frigates were steadily disgorging their armored ordnance and marines and set themselves up 300 yards from the periphery of the cavern facing towards the center to provide covering fire. She watched one of the frigates crashing to the ground after being struck by a cloud of missiles. She saw it continuing to fire on the enemy as it fell. She carefully observed the progress of the battle. She received images from Zenith informing her the Coven were using some form of new lightning weapon that was quickly disabling the dogs and boars. Marion, the sow manifested behind Janet and sent her similar images. Both sets of animals indicated that they were changing strategy and showed attacks from below on the Coven ground troops.

***

She felt the gunship shake and heard a muffled concussion. The ship tilted to starboard. There was a second thump closer to the bridge and her gunship fell out of the air to strike the ground nose first before coming to rest. Janet unharnessed herself. Gunships, tanks and Mech Warriors converged on her position to provide cover. The gunship power was still working. She saw enemy tanks and gunships and thousands of enemy troops heading in her direction. Her ship shuddered from an impact which blasted a six-foot diameter hole near the back of the gunship.

“People, we are too vulnerable in the gunship! Fee, call up one of the frigates to pick us up. We will transfer to them as soon as we can. This rust-bucket has had its day,” ordered Janet.

Fee moved to the hole in the hull and used her handheld direct communicator to call the nearest frigate and arrange cover. Janet saw the power was fading in the ship. That would mean no shield at all. On the dimming hologram she saw an attack building to assault her position. She saw mech warriors, tanks and gunships racing to intercept the enemy. “Open the ramp and move quickly into the frigate on the count of three,” Janet said counting down and ran to follow her people down the ramp and up into the frigate. As she did so her gunship was hit by two missiles and the front end where she had been sitting was obliterated. She felt the concussion wave hit her but she continued to run. She saw Fee just ahead of her hit in in the leg taking off her foot and ankle. She grabbed her around the waist and pulled her using her armor’s augmented power into the frigate. The ramp closed. Janet passed Fee to the nearest medic and made her way up to the bridge. She noticed two others of her group had been hit; their armor was scorched but otherwise intact. They looked shaken.

“That was too close for comfort,” said the captain. “I’ve started the command holograms for you and communication is active. While you were moving across the ramp, we halted the assault. We are moving reinforcements into the cavern and at last we are making headway. It is agonizingly slow. We have had a bounce signal from the fleet. They are above us and hitting the surface hard. The planetary forces are not all engaged. Some enemy units are fighting each other. The ones from the planet fighting us are also a lot softer than this lot. The enemy tried to reinforce the roaches here but they have been driven back. We hit them with missiles and cannon from the fleet followed by the fighters, Mech Warriors, gunships, tanks and our troops. We have control of the air. Our fleet is battered but we have been victorious in space!”

“Do you have a connection to the fleet now?” Janet asked the pilot.

“Yes, general, I am connecting you now.” The captain said.

“Linda, they have us pinned down here. We are moving forward slowly, but I think we could benefit from more AI marines. Can you send us a half a million more?. We need more boots on the ground. Also send a force of sixty-thousand to the palace cavern. Blast open bigger holes, so we can move our forces through to the next cavern. We are going to have to finish this lot off or the locals will be krevil mince. I can see the civilian loyalists are trying to support us but they are being cut down en masse. I know we wanted to minimize damage but my other group are trapped in the Royal Cavern and we can’t break through fast enough from here. We need a pincer attack, us from here and another force in the palace cavern. We have destroyed the communications blockers in here as of now and at last we can move forward a bit faster and more easily.” Janet said. “My battle AI estimates we are facing twice the size of force we expected.