Hi everyone!
This is a little something I've thrown together. I'll have The King: Book 3, of my award winning series Trolling In Paradise, up on Lit in the next few weeks, maybe early December (Please read The Beast, and The Leader first). If you'd like to know more about my writing schedule or how to get in touch, check out my bio!
Till next time,
Monty
***
Chapter One
It was simultaneously the most beautiful, and most terrible thing, she had ever seen. Oceanna Blue. One of the most spectacular water worlds known to mankind. From orbit, aboard the Yamato, the sunrise was absolutely spectacular. The deep blue of the planet reflected the bright white of the nearest star. Scans had told humanity that the oceans were of a similar composition to those back on Earth. At least, Earth before the corporations took over and turned the entire planet into a desolate rock. But that was a long time ago. There have been many Earths since then. But none quite so spectacular as this blue orb of perfection.
"Sir, we're picking them up on long range scanners."
Grimacing, Captain Sam Turner nodded to her sensor operator. "It's time to end this. Send the ship to action stations. Bring the forward batteries online."
The communications officer didn't need telling twice. Hitting the ready siren, he opened the internal comms. "Hands to action stations, hands to action stations. Assume condition alpha and await further instruction."
As word went out, Captain Turner could see on the display as the fleet readied their weapons. The few personnel not already in position would soon be. They'd been in battle formation for days. The stims in their implants had been keeping everyone alert and ready for this very moment. They'd forced this engagement. A last ditch effort to stem the tide of the Et-Al.
At first, communication was peaceful. They learned, exchanged information where they could, adapted. And then humanity requested a biological sample. That led to confusion as they were given what ended up being a slave. The problem was, they wanted a human slave in return.
Our refusal to allow the sale of a fellow human, turned to the withdrawal of communications. When civilian transports started to vanish along their borders, it wasn't difficult to pinpoint where they were going. Skirmishes broke out, then war. Humanity turned to elite units, augmented bodies, implants, mechanical prosthetics. The Et-Al, being rather weak physically, relied on machines. Large, powerful, difficult to put down with anything less than demolition teams. Both sides pushed, both sides won and lost and finally here on the brink, would be the final confrontation.
Humanity had had enough. The arks were built, like they had when Earth fell. Their destination was set and they were primed and ready to go. All they needed was a break in the fighting to leave. And we were that break. The last of the augmented regiments. No homes, no families, and nobody to mourn their loss. We'd each seen the memorium planned for humanity's new home. We would be remembered.
"Hold fire until they enter the event horizon of the planet. I want them to have to open fire within the gravitational field of Oceanna Blue." Captain Turner didn't need to give the order to know it was being relayed through the fleet.
It was a last ditch ambush. Every last spare ship that could handle a railgun was here. There was no further use for them with the arks set to leave. The nebula surrounding the system would disrupt the communication equipment the Et-Al used. The debris field from the collapsed moons that made up the other side, was picketed with mines that would take years to clear. All that was left was this one narrow corridor. It was perfect. Oceanna blue, with all its mass, would collect most of the debris, regardless of who came out on top of this conflict, choking it up as well. The Et-Al would take years to pick their way through with a significant force to be a threat. And by that time, humanity would be long gone.
"Sir, they're launching torpedoes."
"Shields up," Captain Turner sighed. "Send the first wave."
They all knew this was a one way trip. To make the most of it, the smallest of the craft. Fighters, but also simple passenger craft all set off at once. Those with weapon systems struck first. Every hit to a torpedo, a small flash in the endless dark of space. But that was secondary. One by one, each craft vanished in a flash of devastation. The debris from each explosion set off others and like a ripple of white, red and blue, the first of humanity's best, secured the future for those back home. Countermeasures existed, but once detected, the torpedoes went 'dumb.' So the only effective way to stop a large volley was to destroy them.
"Send word to the arks," Captain Turner ordered. "Charge the capacitors, I have the forward batteries. Operations have the auxiliaries. Concentrate on similar sized craft."
Taking a seat, Captain Turner pushed the master throttle forward to combat speed. Twentieth century warships had crew members just to tell ships to move forward and back. But modern starships gave the captain more direct control. And the more they could throw at the enemy now, the better.
Sitting in one place wasn't going to benefit anyone but the enemy. But a fully loaded six hundred and fifty thousand, three hundred ton, battlecruiser moving at thirty-thousand kilometers an hour, would still be a fully loaded battlecruiser, moving at thirty-thousand kilometers an hour, even as the ship burned. A battering ram didn't need to be steered when it was that big.
"Bring the fleet up to combat speed. We move as one."
"All ships, all ships," the communications officer started. "Combat speed and hold formation. Repeat, combat speed, and hold formation."
A small cheer went out as Captain Turner took full control of the ship. The main battery was hers to control. But all the smaller armaments were for the operations crew. Others would cycle systems as needed while dialling back on others that failed. Life support was optional as they all wore preservation suits, the modern equivalent of twentieth century flash suits, but with oxygen replenishment. As the battlecruiser accelerated to combat speed, Captain Turner aligned herself with the head of the enemy fleet, a large capital ship.
"Torpedos!"
The soft thump of the slow projectiles echoed off the hull. They were big, slow and only had a moderate tracking ability. The originals were highly advanced and could track and turn with ease to give a ninety-nine percent hit rate. But the more technology crammed onboard, the easier it was to find something to exploit, and when those torpedoes started turning around, they'd gone back to basics. EMP shielding and a metal detector. They were big, slow and once fired, they only needed to travel slightly faster than humanity's fleets to make sure they didn't target something friendly. Not that any of that mattered now.
Adjusting the ship's pitch, Captain Turner's finger hovered over the trigger. "Godspeed everyone." She waited a moment as the operation crew unlocked their controls and got ready.
Then fired.
The glow of the forward batteries firing lit up the bridge. The yellow beams of pure plasma slammed into the Et-Al capital ship. The first shot flared brilliantly across the enemy's shields. While most of the Et-Al ship was automated, the bridge crew were living beings. It would do no good for sensors to be disrupted and having their fleets shut down or act irrationally over long distance comms. Their machines had programming, but it was rather basic. Stand and fight, fall back and regroup. They couldn't anticipate an ambush or know when they were outnumbered.
"Command Veto approved, remove all weapon safety's," Captain Turner announced. "Melt your barrels if you need to."
As the enemy ship shifted to return fire, she surprised them by firing again. This was planned to look like a long engagement. That told the enemy that volleys would come over longer spans, to allow the barrels to cool. But there were no intentions to drag out this conflict. There was simply no need. The heads up display flashed as they took rounds to the area around the forward hull. The shields absorbed the impact, and the Captain fired again.
"Sir, transmission from the Damoclese."
"Put it through," Captain Turner sighed.
A familiar face popped up. Captain Turner's oldest friend saluted. "Sir, our main guns were hit on our opening volley. I request we advance within their ranks."
"Granted."
"Turner," her friend said, in a different tone. "I'd like it to be you."
Nodding her head slowly, Captain Turner saluted her friend. "Save me a seat, Joss."
"Sir!" Joss saluted and shut down the com.
"All ships, keep them off the Damocles."
Then she went back to taking chunks off the enemy ships. Using retro thrusters to slew the battlecruiser horizontally and vertically, it kept the enemy guessing. The Et-Al used predictive algorithms to do the same thing, but a laser is harder to dodge than a sub-lightspeed anti-matter shell.
After the sixth blast, Captain Turner could see the Damocles pulling ahead. It's main thrusters burned everything they had to punch through the first line before the rest of us arrived. The smaller armaments still fired. They blasted away nearby torpedoes, before concentrating on hitting the sides of smaller ships around them. Every enemy ship that turned towards them met a hail of fire from the Yamato and the others, only to be quickly overwhelmed.
Captain Turner got the warning for the barrel overheating as their own shields began to waver. But it was meaningless. Lining up another shot, she squeezed the trigger and silently cheered as it punched a hole clean through the enemy bridge. These massive engagements hadn't been common. Total destruction of one side or the other was rare. As the massive enemy ship began to drift, powerlessly, their automatic firing control systems switched to random mode. Peppering fire at random towards humanity's ships. It was no use though. A warning flared inside the bridge and the ship shuddered from an impact.
"Captain, damage control is reporting the starboard hanger is gone!"
"Seal and vent the nearby compartments to prevent fires. If they spread, this is already over."
"Sir!"
It would mean deaths, but nobody was coming out of this alive. Even if they somehow pulled this off, there was nowhere to return to.
Anti-matter bombs were about to obliterate every last human presence. Their lives would be spent floating in space, within their ships until either picked off by the Et-Al, or far more likely, starvation.
