Defying The Alliance: INFERNO (Novokin Alliance Invasion 2) (7 page)

"That's the last of the pods Captain," Jaxx announced.

By this point I was shaking so much I wouldn't have been able to stand if not for the chair I held a death grip on. I barked out what I believed would be one of my final orders, "Charge all weapons." 

The visage of the soulless Novokin blinked onto the screen. The smug prak was sitting back in his chair, hands steepled and eyebrows raised as if to say, Oops. His voice was smooth when he spoke, "Oh darn, I said ten minutes, didn't I? I meant one minute. You have to forgive me Captain, the situation was so tense."

"What the prak is wrong with you?" I spit. “You soulless scum of –."

"Every single thing I choose to do is sanctioned!" Asmot screamed, rising to his feet. Even through the view screen the spray of spittle was visible and a few strands of his perfectly coiffed hair seemed to work their way out of order. He ranted on, "I am a certified Captain of the Novokin Alliance and my will is law. I have you outgunned Captain, but I think now I will arrest your entire crew. Obviously, you have to pay for your crimes, in public I might add. But some of my crew have expressed interest in that one."

Anya bared her teeth when his finger pointed towards her. Then it crept over to Julie, and I felt the temperature in the room drop 10°. "And that one over there with the Floturan. Wait, do my eyes deceive me? Is the male pregnant? Oh the games we can play with him."

I held my tongue and let the bastard drone on unimpeded. An imperceptible tilt of my chin let my first officer know to charge the weapons to maximum. Having served with Jaxx for several years, I was sure he had already targeted several key points on the enemy ship. And if the book taught me anything, it's never mess with a pregnant Floturan male.

Asmot turned his head to someone off screen. "Now really Captain, charging weapons while we're having a discussion? Tsk, tsk. You must know how much worse it will be for you if your ship fails in a firefight. Do you know what I'd do if you so much as –."

The proximity alarm blared on both ships.

"Captain, we've got another ship incoming," Jaxx chimed in. "Alliance signature, a Thegn class light cruiser."

Praking great, as if the goliath in front of me wasn't bad enough – he brought a friend. It was then I realized Asmot had stopped talking. He wasn't expecting a ship. Curious.

Both crews sat in silent vigil as we watched the Thegn ship exit from hyperspace. The moment it emerged a dozen escape pods blasted away from it. That's a new tactic.

Asmot seemed to recompose himself, and turned his attention back to the viewer. He had the smugness dialed all the way up when he addressed us. "Surrender Captain, it seems that you're not only outgunned, you're outnumbered too."

No sooner had he spoken when a second figure appeared on the viewer.

What in the eight infernos?

"Liam?" I questioned, even though he was right in front of me.

He blew me a kiss before answering, "Right as always Cas. I know I always swore to you we were just having fun, but that was a lie and for that I’m sorry. I've always loved you Caspia Jones, and always will."

With that, his image flickered off leaving only the murderer and his massive instrument of death on our screen. Liam's small light cruiser, the Vorce must've fired its thrusters on maximum. Before Asmot's people had a chance to react, the small ship drove itself into what appeared to be the main engine of the Novokin warship.

"Noooooo!" I heard someone yell, so far away, it couldn't have been me.

My hands lifted to shield my eyes. The initial explosion lit up my bridge like the mid afternoon sun on a New Astorian summer's day. A chain of smaller reactions lit the sky white, then red. Half of the monstrous ship in front of us went dark. Liam had given us a chance, and I wasn't about to squander it.

Refusing to look down, lest I saw the gaping hole in my chest where my heart had been ripped out, I managed to choke out one last command through my tears. "Get us the hell out of here."

Episode 4

The large, muscled man tried in vain to wedge his thick fingers underneath the ill-fitting body armor. He swore the barrack's bunks were rife with bedbugs. None of the other soldiers ever complained like him. He snorted in frustration. Rounds were boring and tedious. Especially this early in the morning with no one around to talk to.

Fortune smiled on Victol. He spied one of his comrades at the entrance to the shipyard. The well-toned young soldier with the light purple hue to his skin doubled-timed his steps down the base hall. "Hey Marlek, anything to report?"

The grizzled, old warrior rubbed his bald head from back to front, seemingly unable to accept the loss of the epic battle with his hair early in life. He flashed the younger guard a narrow stare. "Are you serious Victol? Nothing ever happens out here or will ever happen out here." Fishing in his pocket, he paused to chew on a piece of dried Garnick tail. It had been last night's dinner. Some kind of indigenous mammal. The cook had guaranteed it was edible. Victol did not believe it.

"We won't see any action now that we liberated this sector of space. I doubt there's anyone left here stupid enough to attack a Novokin shipyard."

Rat, that's what the pink-skinned Terran chef had called it. Victol grinned to himself in approval, then drew a dour look across his face to speak in earnest. "That's not what the latest chatter says."

"You need to get your head out of your ass, lest you want to squeeze the purple off!" The older guard guffawed. "And stop listening to that cook Jaspers. Sure he can make a mean meal, but his stories read like children's fairy tales. " He spat out coarse hairs between strained bites.

The younger guard let his rifle drop to his side as he raised both hands up in surrender. "Whoa Marlek, it wasn't him this time. Got this from a lieutenant on one of those Drengr class heavy fighters. He was in here for repairs last week."

"Really, go ahead and enlighten me," the older male murmured, smacking his lips over a particularly tough section of his leftover meal.

Victol cast a suspicious gaze up and down the hall before he leaned in to his friend and whispered, "The Lieutenant said there was some rogue ex-Protectorate Captain. She has been attacking ships on the outer rim. Even managed to go toe to toe with Red Sky." His eyes went wide, like he had just found trilornium fungul gold in his under dressings.

Marlek laughed, "Yeah, I’ll believe that one when Kalliorian pigs fly." The ground shook and the air shuddered in the distance. He cast a speculative glance at the door he was guarding. "Must be another solar storm brewing."

Another loud rumbling rubbed at the soldiers' nerves. Victol put his ear to the door. As if he would actually be able to detect something through the thirteen inches of solid Desinite steel. He stood there, like a child trying to secretely listen to his parents’ argument before he turned back to his friend. "I know we're pretty far out, but a shipbuilding yard is a fairly strategic position, isn't it? Do you think there's a chance this ex-Protectorate Captain would attack here?"

The old veteran stepped out from behind his Desinite steel and carbonite reinforced glass booth. He threw a heavy arm around the younger guard's shoulders and shook him, "She wouldn't dare. Our post is one of the most heavily armed. This daft Captain would need a fleet of ships to even get close. And even if she had a fleet, there is no way they could get past the early warning detection net. We would spot them sectors away, and then they’d go – poof."

Even as he smiled and clapped Victol on the back, the thundering noise outside drew closer. Soon a low whistling whine crept through the door. It seemed to come from inside the electrostatic atmospheric dome.

"What in Falks is that?" The young guard's voice tinged with apprehension. "It sounds like something incoming. A missile maybe?”

The bald man cast the young guard a look more often saved for small children. He smacked him on the back of his head, "Are you still fretting about this Victol? You need to pull your head out of your ass."

The young guard remained unfazed by the hit. Panic bled through his words. "There was nothing said about any kind of storm in the briefing this week. Besides the weather on this planet is stable. Artificial atmosphere stable."

Marlek dropped his head to his chest. He let out a deep sigh. "All right Victol, you win. Help me get this door open. We’ll have a look for ourselves to put your young mind at rest."

Bright lights pierced the darkness the older guard expected to find. The whistling noise was definitely getting closer. Jaw slack, eyes narrowed, he tilted his head to help his mind comprehend what he was seeing.

"What the Falks is that –."

"The Lexnalt is hailing us Captain," Ensign Chandles announced.

The low murmur of voices on the bridge quieted. I nodded my head at the ensign. "On view screen."

The face of a gruffly handsome man with black hair and deep dark inset eyes greeted me with a solemn look. I would address his pain, but today, we all had something to celebrate. "Captain Ramirez, thank you. Without you and your crew we wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near that asteroid or the Novokin shipbuilding facility. Your people did a fantastic job of disrupting the security net."

He waved me off as if he hadn't done anything more than scoot over on a park bench at lunch so I could sit down too. "Captain, I can never repay you for what you did for my sister, her family and everybody on the mining colony. My nephew still talks about you, and your creature there," he smirked and jutted his chin at the 6'8" wall of muscle that stood just behind me.

Trex let out a low rumbling growl.

Captain Ramirez raised a defensive hand. "No disrespect meant there my big friend, if not for you and yours they all would've died, including my favorite nephew. I can never repay you for saving them." He stopped to wipe his eyes. His sister's family was among those able to take shelter in the escape pods we launched to the planet. We waited in respectable silence for the man to compose himself from wherever it was his mind had taken him. When he spoke again, his voice quavered. "Excuse me Captain, I had a lot more friends on the planet that didn't make it."

Captain Ramirez and several ex-Protectorate captains had found me after the incident with the mining colony. His sister’s account along with other first hand testimonials of what actually transpired from the surviving colonists had spread through the galaxy’s underground network like wildfire. From freighter to transport, transport to outpost, Katlen's story was rallying the old Protectorate, thieves, smugglers and free enterprise ships alike.
Rallying them, to us. To me.

"We're sorry for your loss Captain." We had a front row seat when that madman Asmot destroyed the planet's atmosphere, killing most of its inhabitants. We would've died too, if not for the selfless sacrifice of a good, old friend. The image of Liam setting his jaw and uttering his last words to me before he launched his crew-abandoned ship into the heart of Asmot’s monstrosity stabbed my heart. I found myself rubbing my own eyes. Then I raised my head to Ramirez and assured him, "You've honored their memories today by making sure the Alliance can't build any more monstrosities like the one that destroyed your sister's mining colony." 

The captain of the cargo ship choked up again and he motioned his officer to cut the communication. I jumped to my feet, "Captain... would it be possible to talk to my friend for a moment?"

Captain Ramirez was only able to nod as he moved out of view. A moment later a small man with thick, salt-and-pepper hair stepped into the screen. His smile always made him look like he’d just finished a happy song.

He waited for what I presumed was for Captain Ramirez to be out of earshot, then turned back to me and blurted, "Holy prak Caspia, you pulled it off! I don't know how in the eight infernos you got this ragtag group together to stand up to the Alliance, but you did it. I always knew you were bucking for that admiral ship." His grin was as wide as the horizon and twice as infectious.

"No way on Astoria's green plains Brantz," I balked in reply. "They'd have to drag me out of here in a box before I'd take that promotion and give up my ship. Anyway, I've got a bit of a score to settle with you." He raised two bushy caterpillars at that. Looked like I’d caught him off guard. I guess there's a first for everything.

"Seems there was a card game about two months before the invasion. You remember, on Captain Ross's ship?" I eyed him speculatively, not willing to tip my hand quite yet.

"Yeah," he stammered, clearly blowing plasma exhaust up my ass. The Brantz Paulson I knew couldn't remember what he had for breakfast, let alone a card game over three years ago. I tried not to laugh as he screwed his face up, racking his brain before he mumbled, "But I don't recall owing you any money."

"That's right Brantz. Because I owe you. Don't remember the last hand? Your flush queen high to my full house?"

Recognition dinged and his eyes widened. "Yeah, I remember that. I believe you owe me 200 credits," he said, pleased with himself.

"Well Brantz, never let said that Caspia Jones welches on a debt. I figured after all this time there's been a bit of interest compounded too, so I want to pay it in full now."

"What you got for me baby?" He replied, brandishing a suggestive look that made my gut split with laughter. The man flirted like a wet noodle reciting a cheesy poem.

Forced to wipe the tears from my eyes between chuckles I teased, "It might not be what you want Brantz, but it's definitely what you need. Check your view screen."

I motioned to Jaxx and the third image materialized on the screen. She was exquisite with her silver and white lines. Three years of neglect had darkened her hull, but not her spirit. I checked back on Paulson, his eyes saucers. I knew exactly how he felt, and boy she was a sight.

Now it might've been Captain Brantz Paulson's chance to cry, but he just stood there with his mouth open. I swear I saw the tiniest bit of drool drop out. He looked at me, and then back to the ship on the view screen. In the midst of the fighting and the bombings, we managed to liberate one forgotten prisoner. Her freedom long overdue. The Protectorate warbird Talon, sister ship to the Razor, was now free and in flight. Ready to welcome her captain back.

I eased back into the support cushions of my chair. I had a helluva crew, and now I had a helluva lot of my friends back.