Chapter 49

The Empire and her Allies heaved a collective sigh of relief as the last stealthed landing craft left its targeted alien ship.

“Looks like we did it, AI,” I said out loud.

“Yes, a brilliant execution of a well-planned operation,” the AI replied in its harsh, flat tones.

“Take us back to the Spitfire,” I requested the pilot.

“Yes, ma’am,” came the reply over an audio channel as I couldn’t see the pilot from where I was surrounded by monitors and a tri-dee cube.

“How long until detonation?” I asked the AI.

“Forty-seven rotations.”

“Cut it a bit close,” I murmured, more to myself.

“There were several complications due to differing internal layouts of the alien ships,” the AI explained. “All overcome, however.”

“Yes, but all we have to do now is wait.”

‘The adaptations to the grav-drives have been made,’ the senior intelligence announced to the gathered Masters.

‘Prepare for the burst and then a scattering,’ the senior Master ordered.

‘Preparations under way.’

‘Where and when shall we meet?’ a Master asked.

‘Spend time gathering resources and rebuilding our harvesting fleets as well as restoring Reelc numbers. Every one hundred stellar cycles send a scout to the binary star cluster in this sector and wait for a signal with the details of a location to re-assemble,’ the senior Master instructed.

‘So we skulk in the shadows?’ a Master asked unhappily.

‘If you are wise, you will. Allow time for this prey Empire to drop its guard and forget about us. Experience tells us all prey follow the cycle of growth and collapse. I see no reason why this prey should be different,’ the senior Master rebuked.

‘This is wise,’ another Master replied. ‘Our glory must go on!’

‘Then let us learn the bitter lessons here as we prepare for our return in glory!’ the senior Master stated before, along with the others, quaffing once more the elixir of life which made their outer skin glow with vitality.

“We’re detecting a massive grav-wave build up in the enemy ships!” the Detection Officer warned.

“All ships?” Gollant asked.

“All we are detecting.”

“Allied Fleets confirming,” the Comm Officer added.

“What the hell are they up to? They surely haven’t discovered our little surprises?”

“Might be an escape plan coming to fruition...” Clessik murmured thoughtfully. “All ships, prepare for pursuit. They might be able to temporarily move much faster than we can.”

“They may reach a safe jump zone and then we’ll lose them,” Gollant cursed.

“Depends on if our charges go off before or after they jump ... assuming they do.”

“How long until they do?” Gollant asked the Bridge.

“Eight rotations,” the AI replied.

“Plot the direction they will probably go,” Clessik ordered. “Get any Heavy Fighters we’ve got headed that way and hope they can’t sustain it too long to lose us.”

“Orders sent,” the AI replied.

“Allied Fleets are doing something similar,” the Comms Officer reported.

I had just reported back to Gust when the shipboard AI started giving out announcements and warnings of extreme grav manoeuvring, meaning we had to tie ourselves down to one of the restraining clamps set throughout the Spitfire and prepare for local gravity to be temporarily overcome.

“What the hell is happening?” I asked out loud.

“Alien fleet appears to be planning a sudden move,” the AI explained.

“But our bombs?”

“Are unknown to the aliens, hence are not planned for.”

“No ... I meant what if they do escape?”

“We track them and destroy them,” Gust opined.

“I see,” I nodded.

“Nevertheless, your point is well made, tracking the survivors, if they do jump, will not be easy,” Gust admitted.

“I’ve no doubt we’ll give it a try.”

“We will, difficult as that may be, however it’s going to be time in one rotation,” Gust replied as his cube switched to an outer view of the alien fleet, somewhat enhanced by the AIs so we could see where they were, rather than just tiny dots.

‘Prepare to move out,’ the senior intelligence ordered the other intelligences in charge of fleet communications.

‘Still waiting on confirmation from several Masters,’ the communications intelligence reported back.

‘It is what it is.’

‘Explosions throughout the fleet!’ a monitoring intelligence reported in shock.

‘In cube, now!’ the senior Master demanded.

‘In cube now, from thirty moments past,’ the senior intelligence replied.

All in the feasting room of the senior Master watched in shock as the ships of the fleet appeared to come apart in a series of massive explosions.

‘Prey are moving in strength against the surviving ships, including this one,’ the monitoring intelligence warned.

‘Move us out, now!’ the senior Master demanded.

‘Signal sent. Remaining ships accelerating. Enemy is pursuing but losing ground,’ the senior intelligence informed the group.

‘Prepare a random jump when we decelerate.’

‘By your command!’

‘Number of ships who accelerated with us?’ the senior master finally asked.

‘One hundred and three. We estimate at least another fifty survived but failed to accelerate away,’ the senior intelligence replied after collating the data.

‘This is a disaster,’ another Master lamented.

‘Truly it is,’ the senior Master agreed. ‘For we can no longer increase our numbers. Our race is doomed.‘

‘Our chances of rebuilding our harvesting fleets?”

‘Are nil, Master. None of the construction modules made it away. The majority were destroyed in the explosions,’ the senior intelligence replied.

‘How did they do this? They are but prey?’

The Allied Fleets accelerated forwards into what was left of the alien fleet, the vast majority of which was simply floating unpowered with massive holes within their hulls. Those ships that still had power opened up at the Allies with devastating effect. Though with their numbers now so reduced, it was not a major impediment to the Allies closing and engaging in strength.

“They’re going down, sir,” Gollant informed Clessik as he observed the battle as a whole, not individual ships.

“Yes, any news on the ones that escaped?”

“46^th Heavy Fighter squadron tracked them to the system edge from where they jumped, sir.”

“Inform the Scouts. Send pickets out to all the local systems. Let’s see if we can catch a sniff of them.”

“On it, sir.”

“In the meantime, let’s end this for this lot.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No boarding actions?” I asked Gust as we observed the battle.

“We already have a mostly intact ship that you captured. This is just a clean-up and for the Fleets a chance to reclaim a little glory as most of the grunt work in this war was done by Ground Force,” he explained.

“Yet still no idea why the aliens were doing this, unless it was some sort of barbaric sport.”

“It is believed,” the AI interjected, “from an autopsy on the creature you killed on your last mission that they need a complex series of human biochemicals to enhance their physical and mental powers.”

“They saw us as energy drinks?” Gust asked, looking shocked.

“Simplistic, but yes.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Investigators are going through a mass of records held in what appears to have been the creature’s quarters. They may not have communicated verbally, but they kept both written and electronic histories of their past lives.”

“And?” Gust asked curiously.

“We are still sorting through a lot of self-aggrandisement, but they appear to have been the scourge of over fifteen past civilisation periods.”

“Oh, wow,” I breathed quietly.

“How come we’ve never seen evidence of these civilisations?” Gust asked.

“Once they finished a cull, or harvest as they called it, they moved around the galaxy to a promising new area and waited, setting an intelligence test to trap any spacefaring race into waking them up.”

“So, it was humanity’s numbers that attracted them?”

“Essentially so. The data suggests they were surprised at our numbers and advancement, though still considered themselves superior to us.”

“That’s because we didn’t originate from around here, according to Imperial history,” I added. “We came from the next arm over, expanding from there.”

“This is correct, Kiria,” the AI acknowledged. “For all that humanity still only resides in a tiny part of this galaxy, we are still far bigger in numbers than anything the aliens had encountered before.”

“I’m going to assume we were more advanced, more aggressive and more cunning too,” I chuckled.