Chapter 19

Outwardly the battle appeared to be a stalemate, though, in this case, appearances were definitely deceptive. Most of the Imperial vessels were reloading missiles from the Fleet Tenders that had come to support the fleets, whilst the Missile Carriers, with their far higher stock of missiles, remained in place and merely acted against any of the larger alien vessels from trying to come near the fleets. That the Missile Carriers were more or less immune to beam weapons was a big help here and ensured the aliens were cautious in approaching.

The aliens themselves seemed to be fixated on removing the boarding parties from their ships, though in this were partly frustrated by the Heavy Fighter contingents chipping away at their own boarding craft as it appeared the larger alien craft had no means of docking to each other. On board, Ground Force were making a good account of themselves against the various alien types that did make it to the frontline though were not progressing any further than the lodgements they’d made due to the number of aliens arrayed against them and the internal design of the alien ships.

Overall though, Admirals Hratt and Tret were reasonably satisfied in frustrating the alien advance, particularly in the lack of any alien missile ships as well as their boarding types. They were, however, being cautious. The point of their attack was not to destroy the aliens, but to stop them and force a retreat. They knew that if they ‘mixed it up’ with the aliens they’d get their heads handed to them. Plus, there was still the mystery of what the alien ships in the core of the aliens formation were for, as any close approach by a Heavy Fighter brought out a veritable storm of close range, anti-shipping fire.

The Florven Technocracy Navy was currently sitting out the battle as their ships were ineffective, none of their capital ships mounted missiles of any type, beam weaponry until now having sufficed for them for both range as well as damage. The information the Empire had supplied though in view of the alien’s shields and how to beat them was now being gone over, particularly in regards to the Hegemony disintegration beam, though naturally as yet without results.

“Still no breakthroughs,” Torun commented as we patched up a couple of Troopers with internal injuries from alien beam weapons as they were trying to get around the current blockade.

“I know. They have us stalled trying to cross a wide-open central corridor,” I replied.

“Frustrating as hell.”

“Yep, plus we still have no idea just what this vessel is for.”

“Also true,” she chuckled. “Any ideas on how to break through?”

“Not against those beam weapons they have, no. Our pellet weapons are useless against those armoured things and the smaller ones behind them shoot through the gaps or under the damned things.”

“Mobile barricade?”

“Those armoured types are too strong; they’d just push us back. What we need are small ... bomblets packed with ball-bearings to explode underneath them and kill them,” I said thoughtfully.

“Like our explosive charges?”

“Needs to be a lot smaller and a lot less powerful, otherwise we might destroy something critical and blow the ship up,” I chuckled.

“Plus we don’t have a lot of ball-bearings either.”

“Doesn’t have to be ball-bearings, just something like the pellets and a detonator.”

“We have got pellets,” Flinn, who had been listening in, added.

“We have?”

“Yes, in the stores.”

“Can I pop down and get a few things?”

“OK, but you be damned careful.”

“Yes, Flinn.”

A thousand rotations later I was carefully cutting the explosive matter used in our demolition charges into small cubes whilst Flinn was flattening the matter and adding the pellets we used in our firearms plus a small remote detonator. Torun was then folding it back into a ball and wrapping it in some tape we had.

“Think it will work?” Torun asked.

“Hope so, if we roll them under the armoured types then enough of the pellets, along with the explosion itself, will take them out,” I replied.

“Worth a shot,” Flinn added with a nod.

When we were ready, we headed to the closed blockage where the aliens had us deadlocked. Once there, I rolled one of our devices from cover directly under the closest of the armoured aliens. Flinn then used a small handheld transmitter to set it off. The results were satisfying and I rolled two more at the blocked area and Flinn set them off before the Monitor in charge led an assault on the now confused alien position, allowing our forward edge the chance to advance again.

“Nice one, Kiria,” Flinn praised me.

“Team effort,” I nodded. “Shall we move to the next bottleneck?”

“Yes, let’s clear the way.”

We spent the next several rotations simply handing out the bomblets as well as informing the various specialists how to make them. We were also aware that the AIs were coming up with a better design, initially to be manufactured by the various fleet support ships and eventually by the various production plants in the Empire as well as Tafta.

“We really do seem to be falling back on primitive methods to take out these aliens,” Flinn noted as we returned to the still quiet medical station where Torun was holding the fort.

“Looks like they’re using the bomblets for other purposes,” Torun commented.

“Other purposes?” Flinn asked.

“They’re throwing them around corners to clear their way. They are very effective against the crew aliens.”

“Oh, good. Anything that keeps our people alive and uninjured is a good thing.”

“Seems everything comes around full circle. We started off with swords and spears, went on to pellet and then beam weapons, now we’re back to swords and pellet weapons,” I chuckled as the Meditechs brought a patient in and we got back to work.

“Looks that way,” Flinn nodded.

“4^th Fleet is beginning its flanking movement,” a Comm Officer informed Tret.

“Good, let’s see how they react to an attempt to prevent them leaving easily,” he nodded.

“I doubt we could destroy them all, we simply don’t have enough missiles,” Gollants replied thoughtfully.

“True, but they will be forced to react to us and keep away from the planet.”

“Assuming they simply don’t decide to charge us. We are dividing our force after all.”

“Always a risk, though they haven’t seemed inclined to in the past.”

“According to what we’ve learned, they have been destroying ships by pursuit rather than just pushing them out of the way.”

“We aren’t running away; I suspect this has them confused. That and having boarded their vessel, even if we can’t get even the full complement of one Assault Carrier on board it.”

“Reports coming in suggest GF have broken the stalemate for now and are moving further in, though still no clues as to what the vessel is,” Gollants informed him.

“That is good news.”

“Progress is still slow. We can still only approach from one direction, the one where the Missile Carrier destroyed all its close in weapon systems. The Heavy Fighter Squadrons are preventing alien re-supply and re-inforcement, but have to be careful.”

‘Again this arrogant prey advances against us!’ the supreme controlling intelligence informed the others in frustration.

‘We also cannot dislodge them from the Guardian ship protecting the inner core,” another intelligence added.

‘Truly they are becoming bothersome,’ came another reply.

‘I suggest we detach the area they occupy and launch a strike against it,’ the supreme controlling intelligence advised.

‘And of their advance?’

‘A swarm of our few Paranc against the flanking fleet will give them pause and give us time to withdraw and report.’

‘Agreed. The masters need to know, this harvest is not going as others have.’

‘I concur.’

We were busy patching up a column of essentially walking wounded as we had no major cases and the Meditechs were struggling when gravity failed. Fortunately the AIs in our suits activated our grav-packs and we generally stopped ourselves from floating away.

“AI, situation report please?” I requested.

“The sections where we boarded the alien vessel have been detached and are drifting away from the main body,” the AI reported.

“Is the main body turning to bring its weapons to bear?”

“Checking, it is. Command notified!”

“We need to get out! We’re sitting rimphoks here,” Torun observed.

“We do,” Flinn acknowledged. “Tether the patients and prepare to leave. Make sure your air packs are full!”

“Moving section to vacuum in 3, 2, 1!” the AI announced.

Other than taking nearly a rotation to empty the vessel of air from the various holes the AI had ordered, we were OK, if a bit buffeted. We then unclipped the tethers holding our patients and moved as a group to the now open rear hatch on the boarding pod.

“Which direction is Fleet?” I asked as we launched ourselves into the void.

“Course has been set,” the AI replied.

I noticed other groups leaving the section we had conquered.

We moved at what appeared to be a rapid pace away from the section even as the huge alien vessel turned and began firing at it.

“Going dark!” the AI announced.

I soon saw why as several beams slashed away at many of the smaller clusters of debris as well as a large group of Troopers who had been moving away from the section.

“Spread out as far as you can,” Flinn ordered over the low frequency, limited range, ‘whispernet’ local command comm.

We did so as, I noticed on my AI feed, did other groups. Sadly some were not so quick on the uptake as the slashing beams swiftly targeted any group not dispersed.

“Oh, dear gods!” Torun sobbed out as the alien ship ruthlessly took down any and all groups it could detect.

“Just thank them that we couldn’t get the full set of regiments on board,” I said quietly.

“Indeed, Kiria,” Flinn agreed. ‘It’s bad, but it could have been a lot worse and we learned a few lessons.”

“Some of them were my friends,” Torun continued to weep.

“And we will mourn them,” I said softly, hearing others repeat the phrase.

“Indeed we will. Now settle in, it might be a while before we can switch on our rescue beacons,” Flinn added as we drifted further away from the alien vessel.