Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (47 page)

Slowing her fleet
considerably, Selena advanced nervously, constantly scanning the
space around her ships as well as the asteroid field, but the
battle matrix system showed nothing. However, something stroked
Darius’ mind; a sense of foreboding invaded her 3 dimensional
medium that made her tremble.

Somewhere inside, she heard
voices echoing that the end was near. It seemed that the minds of
the huma-droids were revolting against her—that they knew something
and weren’t going to tell her. Their cries grew to chilling
mournful wails as the distance between the two fleets
closed.

Selena tried to shut them
out of her thoughts and concentrate on the battle, but they
persisted in their lamenting. A tempest of both terror and anger
consumed the cyborg woman at the same time.

“NO! YOU LIE!” Selena
screamed back, trying to convince herself as well. “THERE IS
NOTHING THERE! THEY ARE LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER! I WILL DESTROY
THEM!” Selena stubbornly clung to her hate and the propaganda of
Martian inferiority for support. Still her advanced towards the
Martians was prudent as her fear magnified an image of a disastrous
confrontation in her mind.

The Crimson Fleet, however,
forged invariably closer; the weapons of every ship became aglow in
swirling heated plasma and ions as they energized. They were about
to fire.

* * * * *

“SPEED WITHIN THE MARGINS!
APPROACHING SECOND INITIAL POINT!” Randall announced. His trained
eyes analyzed the distance and velocity of the Crimson Fleet,
tracking to the center point of the minefield.

Wakinyan pressed a green
button on the arm of his command chair and waited.

“TWENTY SECONDS!” Randall’s
voice came over the bridge crew’s headsets.

Wakinyan then readied an
index finger over a red button beside the green one he had just
pressed.

“FIFTEEN SECONDS!” James
announced in his countdown.

Every crewman aboard every
Martian ship held his or her breath. Time seemed to stand still as
each moment dragged tediously into the next, but this was an
illusion, the inevitable was imminent.

Randall then mouthed the
final seconds. “TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE,
TWO, ONE!”

Without hesitation,
Wakinyan then punched the red button on the arm of his command
chair.

All became silent within
the universe, and time was frozen in the minds of the Martians.
Selena also felt this as well. Then something told her in her
thoughts to look down, and as she did, a poignancy of total dread
lashed out at her.

The asteroid belt beneath
the Crimson ships suddenly erupted in an enormous inferno, a
fantastic wave of fire and heat that stretched the length and
breath of the Earth fleet. It billowed and burned with flame and
brimstone, as a gigantic blast wave shook her fleet and sent
horrific mountains of rock and dust upward. The debris came as
colossal bludgeons, hurtling directly at the red ships with nothing
in between but empty space.

A horrified Selena screamed
as her mind saw the encompassing mass smash into the lower level of
her armada. Death was upon them and his sharp scythe blade carved
its way easily through the formation of Darius’ ships.

Rocks, boulders, and
meteoroids crashed into the bottom line of the Earth fleet with the
force of a monstrous cyclone. The ships’ hulls crumbled like tin
with the impact. They, themselves, were then propelled against the
rows of warships just above them. Vessel after vessel then
detonated as drives and power plants shorted and overloaded. It was
a domino effect that evaporated huge ranks of Earth warships within
the tight formation. Yet, the devastation caused by the primordial
debris was just beginning.

A million ricocheting
asteroids bounced off of the inner side of the blue force field and
bore into the Earth armada’s upper ranks. Hulls were smashed or
torn apart, as compartments decompressed slowly or simply exploded.
With each ship that disappeared in a tragic end, the blue shield of
energy faltered. In large scattered patches, the blue wall crumbled
before permanently winking out.

It was
then that Selena ripped the tiara off her head before the
huma-droids exploded. Smoke and fire once more filled her bridge as
several large impacts shook and vibrated the
Quinton
.

“ATTACK!” ordered Wakinyan
at once.

The Martian ships plunged
forward, determined to trample the enemy before them. Onward they
rushed, quickly closing the distance between their intended targets
and the maximum effective range of their weapons.

The Earth crews were
frantic, but they swiftly recovered from the unexpected calamity.
The Earthers then began firing at the approaching Martian warships.
Their aim was true, as many of the Martian vessels took hits—but
surprisingly, the Martian ships didn’t explode like they should
have. Instead, the strikes were almost an annoyance, as each holed
Martian warship just shook off the effects of the laser blasts and
continued on its attack vector. Again and again the Earth ships
fired, but each time the results were the same.

The cyborgs were awed, unable to fathom what was
going on. The obsolete Martian ships were defying every attempt to
destroy them. The disbelief transformed into alarm as the cyborgs
grasped that they were now the helpless ones. Sheer terror then
overrode all of their machine programming and spread among the
hybrid humans in a terrible upwelling. Some cyborgs began turning
their ships to run, while others continued shooting. Regardless, it
was no use; they all were now within firing range of the vengeful
Martians bent on retribution.

The
Martian’s
up-gunned
laser weapons came to life in bursts of unbridled fury, and
merciless pounded the surviving lines of Earth ships. The Martians
scored hit after hit on the tattered remnants of the once mighty
armada, each time spelling disaster for the Earthers. The Martian
energy bolts penetrated deeply into Earth hulls, slicing through
them like a hot knife to butter. Huge explosions blew sections of
Earth ships apart, while igniting intense fires that engulfed the
luckless vessels. The cyborg crews died either in the fires that
raged or in the void of space where they were blown out into. The
two belligerent fleets then entwined in a dramatic embrace of
swirling destruction in climatic violence.

Ships fought head to head
as the battle continued. But as fate would have it, old foes were
drawn together one last and final time.

Although Selena tried to
direct the defense of her remaining ships, she was more concerned
with her own survival. “RENEE!” she yelled across the bridge, “HAVE
ADMIRAL O’DONALD ATTACK NOW! AND VECTOR ALL REMAINING SHIPS AROUND
US IMMEDIATELY! I WANT PLENTY OF COVER!”

Renee was
about to acknowledge her order, but he and Selena were knocked off
their feet by a large impact that rocked the
Quinton
. As the two cyborgs rose, the
command and control computer informed Darius of a
communication.

“Admiral,” the machine
spoke. “A Martian cruiser is hailing you.”

Exchanging glances with
Renee, she reluctantly nodded to the machine to put it
on.

“Hello, Selena,” the
familiar voice of Trager greeted. “I’m so glad you accepted my
invitation.”

“You lowly sack of flesh!”
Selena chastised, “Where are you?”

Trager chuckled. “I show
you,” he happily replied. “FIRE!” his voice commanded his gunner’s
mate.

The
Quinton
again rocked to a laser hit from the
Mir
.

“That was on your port
quarter!” Trager explained. “Oh dear me, I’ve seemed to have made a
great big hole in your ship!”

As the
Quinton’s
main viewer quickly
focused in on an image of the
Mir
, Renee pleaded with other ships
for assistance.

“TARGET AND DESTROY HIM!” Selena screamed to the
computer.

“That should be a little
hard for you to do,” Trager informed her.

“Why?” Selena
questioned.

Trager again chuckled.
“Because my first salvo took out your weapon generators on the port
side! By the way, you’ll be happy to know that also showed the
Martians where to target your ships. I’m sure they’re putting that
knowledge to good use right now!”

Rage filled Selena’s heart.
She suddenly made a mad dashed to the weapon controls and armed her
missiles. “Trager, you’ve just made one big mistake! We’re not that
helpless!” she spit back.

Although
there was no time to program them, Selena still blew open
the
Quinton’s
outer
missile bay doors and launched a full salvo of the deadly
rockets.

The
loosened missiles flew in all directions, but as she reasoned,
several of them homed in on the
Mir
and swiftly armed. In seconds, the
Mir
convulsed with
explosion after explosion, as several missiles found their intended
mark.

Part of the Martian ship’s
hull caved in, while a few large pieces were blasted outward. A
halo of energy then emanated around the doomed cruiser and
evaporated into space. It was then that Selena saw bodies and
debris littering the area around the Martian ship.

As Selena
watched, her pleasure grew. She reveled in the damaged her salvo
had produced upon the
Mir
. “Bye-bye Trager,” Selena smirked,
“have a nice death!”

Suddenly,
Darius eyes widened as the laser weapons of the dead ship fired
again. Unbelievably, the Martian cruiser holed the forward
electromagnetic disc of the
Quinton
in reprisal.

“Neither me or my ship dies that easily!”
Trager’s voice filled the air from the intercom with rage. “FIRE!”
he yelled out a second time.

Again
the
Mir’s
weapons
energized and hammered the rearward electromagnetic disc of
the
Quinton
.

“ADMIRAL!” cried out
Captain Renee, “SQUADRONS OF ENEMY DESTROYERS ARE APPROACHING
FAST!”

“GET US OUT OF HERE!”
hysterically shrieked Admiral Darius.

But Renee
was already setting the
Quinton’s
course for retreat and its engines to flank speed.
The huge dreadnought then spun around and plowed its way free of
the battle, damaging a few more of its own ships as it raced
towards O’Donald’s advancing division.

Trager
sighed with relief as the huge Earth ship accelerated away. As he
looked about, the bridge of the
Mir
was devastated.

It had taken a direct hit
from a missile on its upper starboard quarter. The blast had
ruptured and twisted the metal, while showering the interior with
lethal fragments. A large part of the bridge crew had died in that
moment, along with the ship’s power and artificial
gravity.

Bodies floated and slowly
spun in a weird ballet of death. Their droplets of seeping blood
filled the interior’s space in colorful speckles of red rain frozen
in time. Yet as the officer mourned the death of so many, he was
grateful that he was not among them.

Trager owed his life to a
rupturing armored plate, which had fallen between him and the
detonation. It redirected most of the explosion forward in an
enormous concussion, leaving him and a few other crewmen nearly
unscathed. The ship, however, was doomed.

Trager
knew the
Mir
had
been mortally wounded in the missile attack. Only the localized
power to the weapons remained—and the two shots he used were all he
had left. He wished he could have done more.

“ABANDON SHIP!” he ordered
in attempt to save the rest of his crew. He then grabbed the
unconscious form of Vanessa Parks and floated her out towards the
life pods with him.

* * * * *

As
the
Crazy Horse
killed another Earth cruiser, Wakinyan spotted the last
surviving Earth ships breaking away from the battle and making a
run for the second fleet now converging. Within moments, he ordered
the Martian fleet in full pursuit. The odds were now more even, and
there were still a few more surprises left. A chance at victory
loomed before the warrior. Wakinyan knew, however, that all things
are uncertain until they’re over. Regardless, the end of the battle
was less than an hour away.

* * * * *

Chapter 26: The Last
Sortie

As the furious space battle
was being waged, other minds reached out and touched the thoughts
of both the Earth cyborgs and Martians alike. The Indra studied the
combatants intently from their now fully repaired and operational
warship, analyzing the strategy and any other contributing factors
of the struggle. The information was invaluable since they had
their own vision on how this conflict was to end.