Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) (9 page)

“Hover bike.” Ga’an inspected the ride. It had two seats and a handle bar to ride the thing. As the name suggested, the machine hovered a few centimeters off the ground.

“Yep, hover bike.” Sarah hopped on the bike and Ga’an mimicked her, taking the back seat.

She pulled a helmet from her backpack and added it over her mask. “It has a virtual interface, makes you see through the fog,” she shouted over the engine noise. “I’m guessing that weird-looking ship crashed on the south edge is yours?”

“My ship has crashed, yes.”

“And you read my mind through that device.” It wasn’t a question.

“To some extent, I did.”

“And you know I’m human, and what a chicken is.”

“Yes, chicken,” Ga’an answered. He hadn’t intruded on the woman’s entire brain, but learnt enough to know the basics about her species and speak her language.

“You shouldn’t read other people’s thoughts, that’s rude.”

“I only read the language.” Ga’an never thought of courtesy in the heat of the moment. He
had
intruded on Sarah’s privacy. “I apologize for my action.”

“Nah, it’s all right. The ride will take some time. And it would be a lovely road story to talk about
what
you are, Ga’an.”

Chapter THIRTEEN

ALL THOSE MOMENTS

The spherical tactical display in the middle of the bridge beeped twice as two more green dots appeared, moving slowly inward to take their place near the fleet.

“Admiral,
California
and
Athens
have arrived and are moving into position. All dreadnoughts called to action have arrived.”

The Admiral gave a curt nod. She saw her reflection in one of the screens nearby. She had more grays than black now, and her eyes and lips were smaller than they had been twenty years ago. She owed the scars to the fleet, of course, but her own dedication to her career had taken its toll as well.

She turned her attention back to the main holographic display before her, its bluish light shining on her cheeks, clasping her hands behind her as she always did whenever something required her undivided attention. Before her lay twenty-five dreadnoughts—kilometer long battleships, armed to the teeth formed around her super-dreadnought, the
Deviator
; an eight kilometer long devastation machine. The whole First Banner awaited her orders, positioned before the huge alien ring in Samara’s Star for the last five days, watching for signs of activity. She was thankful nothing had happened before all her ships reported in for duty.

“Commander,” she said without turning to the tactical station. “Signal the first group to initiate maneuvers. Scattered formation.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The executive officer passed the orders through the communicator in a low voice.

“Tactical,” the Admiral continued, “I want the second group networked to our guidance system. We will mark the targets.”

“Aye, ma’am,” a young man replied from a station near the central hub.

A woman, twenty-five at most, walked forward with haste, smoothing her uniform. “Admiral Conway,
Saratoga
reports increased energy readings at the gate.” She handed the admiral a data pad.
“Moscow
confirms the readings.”

Rebecca gave a quick look and handed back the device, returning the junior-grade to her duty station. Rebecca’s attention turned again to the map, and she walked slowly around the spherical view, analyzing the theater from every angle, her steps brushing the synthetic carpet coating on the hardened titanium tiles. She was more interested in preparing for whatever came out of the alien structure than speculating about sensor readings.

“Mr. Jong, signal
Newcastle
to reposition in grid three.”

“Yes, ma’am!” another man replied from a console.

Every now and then, Rebecca checked the main display at the far end of the bridge to see her fleet’s actual movements, rather than follow green dots. She never bet her orders on one instrument—if she had the chance, she’d take a seat high above the operational theatre and observe every move like watching a chessboard. Her fleet now hovered in front of the alien gate in a web formation, hoping to catch whatever came from the blackness.

“Mr. Jong, belay that order,” the Admiral said, after a second glance. “I want the
Newcastle
to act as a counter-battery. I don’t want any missiles escaping through their firing solution.” She stopped and looked around in silence, watching the crew do their jobs. The bridge buzzed with activity; officers running errands for their superiors, reports going back and forth between her first officer and the stations. Her people worked like ants, tirelessly preparing for the unknown, the holographic screens’ bluish lights reflecting on their determined faces.

“Francis, why would you make a huge door?” she called to her commander. She’d realized recently that whenever she needed advice, she’d formed the habit of calling the XO on a first-name basis before the crew.
He’s a dear friend, no need to be alarmed.
She reminded herself of that quite frequently nowadays.
Too frequently to be comfortable.

Francis raised his head from the tactical terminal. “To pass something large through it, maybe?”

“How big is the gate compared to this super-dreadnought?”

“A hundred times, give or take.”

“A hundred times,” Rebecca concurred. Her eyes were on the main screen, but Francis knew her enough to see she was lost deep in thought. There was no hiding from him after all these years. She spoke again. “I want every dreadnought to arm their warheads, and if things go south I want a one-click execution.”

The commander’s clean-shaven face changed color and his eyes bulged. “One-click? Ma’am, do you know what that means?”

She raised an eyebrow.
Friend or not Francis, I am your admiral.

“Rebecca—” He checked to see if the personnel were listening and leaned closer, his voice turning to a whisper. “More than fifty thousand people serve on board these ships. You want them to commit mass suicide with the click of a button!” The commander unintentionally raised his voice on
“mass suicide.”
Several officers close to the central display looked at the two curiously.

Rebecca met Francis’ gaze.
Francis, I always admired your hotheaded honesty.
“You do not build gates this size to say ‘hello’ to your neighbors.” She came closer, almost touching his face with hers, “Look at that gate and tell me you are not afraid of something that size coming out.”

Francis didn’t say anything, locking his stare.

“Look!” she held his chin and twisted his head to the main screen. Now, everyone watched them. The buzz and chatter died into silence, only the humming and beeping of computers filling the air.

Francis’ jaw tightened in rage when she let go of him. His cheeks flushed with anger, his eyes burned with fire. Rebecca met his stare, her gaze more sad than angry.

“Those are my orders, Commander,” she said finally. “I expect you to carry them out.” She didn’t wait for a response but turned back to the tactical display.
Please Francis, it is already hard enough.
She sensed him still behind her, waiting patiently for her to reconsider, but she also knew Francis would abide by her orders. He eventually gave a heavy sigh.
Thank you
, she thought and closed her eyes when the commander returned to his station, muttering under his breath.
Possibly one of his colorful curses, adorned with French words
.

A junior-grade’s yell pulled her mind away from Francis. “Ma’am, something is happening!”

“Report!”

“The symbols. I b—”

She had no patience for lingering. “Be quick about it, lieutenant!”

“The symbols have started glowing, Ma’am,” the young officer finished timidly, as if telling her he’d broken her three-thousand-year-old Roman vase.

“Red alert! Action stations!” Rebecca barked at the tactical. “Set condition one throughout the fleet.”

A siren came through the ship’s speakers, and the bridge lighting dimmed, leaving red LED strips and the information screens to illuminate the bridge. A continuous computer voice echoed after the siren, informing the crew of general quarters call.

“Admiral, the gate’s now active,” Francis announced. His voice was formal, hinting nothing about their exchange a minute ago.

A whirlpool darker than the dark itself formed in the middle of the alien construction. The symbols around the artificial ring, each the size of a battleship, radiated a pale, white light, then one by one, shone bright ruby red, as if someone was entering a code. The sequence lasted a minute that seemed longer than eternity to Rebecca.

“Admiral, fighter wings and defense drones are deployed,” Lieutenant Jong said.

Rebecca leaned on the console, watching the small green dots of the fighters scatter around the main formation like flies over picnic leftovers, creating their own defensive web around the capital ships. “May the God have mercy on our souls.”

A sudden flash of light made her—and the rest of the crew—cover their eyes. When she was able to open them, sheer terror froze her where she stood.

What seemed like a huge ship, at least ten times bigger than the
Deviator
, came out of the hole. It was completely unnatural—a macabre spider would be Rebecca’s best description if asked. Several
legs
branched from the fuselage, giving the thing an insect-like appearance. The details were obscured; most of the ship was colored black, blending into the dark background of space. Hundreds of craft in all sizes followed the mother ship out of the black hole.

Rebecca slowly turned to Francis. He gave a sorrowful smile, as if to say,
now I understand.

Rebecca’s nod was weaker than she hoped for.
Do not worry. Because I need your strength to pull this off.
“Mr. Jong, open a channel and broadcast in all frequencies.”
Focus.

“Channel open, ma’am,” the lieutenant replied.

Rebecca licked her lips, then cleared her throat. “Unknown vessels, you are now in Samara’s Star, Consortium space. Identify yourselves.”

There was no response.

“Unknown vessels, this is your final warning.” She repeated, though everyone on the bridge knew it was mere protocol, the brief calm before the storm. “You are trespassing and we are authorized to use lethal force if you do not comply.”

Rebecca thought if someone dropped something now, it would hang in mid-air, waiting for their response. Everyone held their breath, staring at the massive alien armada.

A sudden, loud crackling, deafening even, filled the speakers. Several officers were covering their ears. Rebecca reached to the console to cut the signal but the noise stopped as fast as it had come.

WE. ARE. COMING. HOME.

It was a dark, guttural voice, echoing through the ship. Rebecca didn’t know if the ship’s speakers or her own head had amplified the sound but it felt like the owner of the voice was inside her mind.
Voices
, she corrected herself;
there are several voices in that message.

WE. ARE. COMING. HOME.

Enough!
Rebecca didn’t stop herself this time and cut the communications, snapping everyone out of their trance.

“Mr. Jong, send a subspace message to Consortium Command.” She waited until her lieutenant secured a line. “We have engaged the enemy and are outnumbered, suggest a secondary block in sector thirty-five between here and Sol. End message.”

Lieutenant Jong looked at his admiral as if she had confirmed their death.

I cannot let them dwell in panic.
“Lieutenant, send that message already! I have a battle to win.” The bellowed order made the young officer jump back to the task at hand. Rebecca stormed the bridge, yelling new orders each second, organizing maneuvers and passing tactics to the other ships, running her officers up and down.

In a matter of minutes, all hell broke loose.

***

“Kyushu
reports power loss to their main deflector.”

“Pull them back to the secondary group, tell them to form a barrage for the first and third!” Rebecca shouted, holding on to a rail and trying to stand still. The super-dreadnought was taking a beating from the enemy behemoth’s fusillade. “Switch power to forward banks!” She jumped left to avoid a falling lamp as another salvo hit the ship. “Atkins, I asked you to shift shields to forward yesterday!”

“Admiral, the power levels—”

“No excuses Lieutenant. Just do it!” Her eyes caught Francis’. “How is the wing?”

Francis shook his head. Most of the first and fourth squadrons were gone. Rebecca had already lost five dreadnoughts and the first group she’d positioned at the front of her web was taking quite a punch to their ranks.

The
Ankara
had been the first to go down when an enemy battleship rammed her belly. The resulting explosion took out at least a dozen enemy craft in the vicinity, but the cost was dear;
Cape Town
and
Sao Paulo
were also within the blast radius and the following shockwave fried most of their systems. Rebecca had tried to pull them back to the rear but their fates were sealed the moment
Ankara
went down.

Sao Paulo
hadn’t even completed the turn before a mortar fire hit her hard from the aft, cracking her hull wide open. The ship had broken in half with the power of the blow and now hovered like a dead husk in the distance, occasional outbursts of fire from the engine section. Bodies, among other debris, had been sucked into space and floated around the now-dead
Sao Paulo.

Cape Town
was more fortunate;
Sao Paulo’s
fall gave her captain enough time to complete the maneuver and reposition near the second fleet. However, the damage had rendered her main thrusters offline, turning her into a stationary firing platform with minimal movement. Sooner or later,
Cape Town
would go down as well.

The other two dreadnoughts,
Missouri
and
Cairo,
had been victims of direct fire from the enemy mother ship. Her—was it normal to call that thing a
her?
—main weapon was a calamitous dark-red beam that cut through their hulls like a razor through skin. Rebecca hoped the aliens were not picking up the escape pods.
A fate worse than death.

She imagined seeing the
Deviator
’s massive cannons opening fire on the big enemy ship one more time, feeling the trembling under her feet each time the huge weapons recoiled back into their mounts. As per her tradition, the audio enhancers were turned off on
Deviator
; something they’d taught her at the academy.
Silence helps them focus on the situation at hand
. She wondered how the captains of the old days had handled the distraction of cannon sounds and explosions in sea battles.

She reached for the intercom and selected Engineering from the holographic menu.

“Hawkins here,” a raspy voice responded.

“Mr. Hawkins.” Rebecca eyed the tactical screen and the main display in worry. “Now would be a good time to find me a weak spot on that ship.” The enemy mother ship hadn’t even seemed to notice their artillery fire.