Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) Read online

  A new voice came online. “This is second Lieutenant Seetch, sir. Lieutenant Graff is dead. His cutter was in the way of the h-beam.”

  “Okay. How many captives do you have?”

  “Twenty, maybe twenty five, sir. Many of them wounded.”

  “I see,” Vier replied. “Make the quickest way to your transport and disconnect with the alien warship immediately. We need those captives alive.”

  “Yes, sir.” The line closed.

  Marine Cutter 001, Delta Battalion

  Passenger Compartment…

  Darkness and pain. That was the only thing Huang knew and seemed to know for as long as he remembered. His face felt like it was on fire. His left arm socket oozed with blood. His back, where the blade had penetrated, felt like a blinding gunshot wound, and he struggled to breathe.

  “Hold on, sir. We're almost there. The medical facilities on board the Nomad will revive you.”

  Huang gasped in pain. Why was he alive at all?

  Why didn't the alien finish him?

  Huang couldn't understand it, couldn't fathom the Cat letting a foe live. The alien had killed the two marines before him without mercy or hesitation. Why did it decide to let him live?

  What did it gain by letting an enemy live in a situation where the enemy couldn't be captured and its knowledge put to use?

  Huang flinched. He knew where he was. He was on board a cutter, being taken back to the mother transport – the MAB.

  The cutter shook. He didn't know what had caused that. His helmet in-HUD was smashed.

  “Almost there, sir,” the trooper beside him said.

  Huang gasped, trying to breathe despite every movement of his lungs making his wounds hurt...

  Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

  Flagship, Beginner’s Luck

  Flag Bridge…

  There was no chance. No chance, thought Vier, of the marines' survival. The feline ships were swarming to the center, to make every last effort to make sure the remaining MAB bubble disappeared, and its trophy along with it.

  But it was also the opportunity of the century.

  Because of instead of fighting her warships, and because the Cats' priority was to get to the center and take out the remaining MAB, they exposed themselves to her weapon fire from all her warships in ways she could never have hoped.

  The enemy was dying faster than ever before.

  But the holo showed the MAB bubble taking another hit by an h-wave. This one slashed at the marine transport itself, eradicating several docking ports on its starboard hull. Vier felt relieved. The transport survived the wave with its suspenders intact.

  Then—another h-wave from another roach slammed into a trio of marine cutters, erasing them from existence.

  Seconds later, two more feline ships entered weapons range and fired their primary weapons as well. Waves of destabilization fields slashed at the loan Valkyrie. The roachs' wormhole weapons detonated energy payloads inside that same MAB as well. On her private report screen, she watched as damage indicators lit up. The MAB suffered malfunction after malfunction. Entire systems went into black. The sheer amount of systems on board the ship blinked off like a cascade.

  Then, it blew up.

  It blew up.

  A white hot fusion detonation split the marine transport in half. Two thirds of the MAB's cutter complement — docked with the main vessel — died with it when they were blasted away into plasma by the explosion. The remaining cutters a little further distant limped away after withering the shockwave of both the MAB and the trophy, but without a mother transport capable of maintaining a warp bubble, they were as good as toast, Vier surmised.

  And of course, the warp bubble surrounding the entire system, trophy and all, began fading.

  Marine Cutter 001, Delta Battalion

  Passenger Compartment…

  There was a hushed silence inside the cutter after the massive blast wave had paled, and Huang knew everyone inside was dead.

  We're dead.

  Huang never had a religion, but as long as he was lying inside that little shuttle in every manner of hurt possible, he thought that fading out of this universe was an ironic but well-suited way to end the pain—and perhaps he would meet a god when he reached the next universe.

  But where did souls go when they dematerialized in hyperspace? For that matter, where did souls go after they died?

  Huang wasn’t sure. That was the one ultimate mystery humanity had never solved through its eons of civilization. And luckily, he was about to find out — in less than six minutes when the warp bubble faded entirely.

  Ka's First Fleet, Main Group

  Supreme Battlecruiser Usha'Tera…

  Hal-Dorat watched the holomonitor as the battle raged.

  A sense of relief flowed over him, relief that the danger of having war-winning technology stolen, analyzed, and reverse-engineered had disappeared.

  It was true — the warship that carried his son's corpse would soon disappear, and his son with it, but he was only slightly grieved. The deed had already been done. His son had done what he needed to do to kill the most of the enemy and protect his ship from being controlled, just as he had done what was necessary for his role as fleet commander by destroying the ship that carried his son's corpse.

  As he watched his new orders put in effect — that his remaining Ga warships returned their priorities on winning the battle, on fighting a traditional hyperspace melee war with their own unique superiorities — he was only slightly perturbed that he was now losing it by a much larger margin than before.

  It was too late now…Hal-Dorat shook his head.

  His Ka had already lost too many light attack ships in their effort to kill the prizes to have even a miniscule chance of reversing the tide. His only chance was for his main fleet of heavy ships to reach the battle in time, but Hal-Dorat knew that even that was impossible as it was obvious to anyone, the enemy commander included, that all the light attack ships would be destroyed before that could happen.

  But— Hal-Dorat grinned, eyes gazing at his command crew in the giant bridge — he had done what he needed to do already — not just in the sense of eliminating the enemy's prizes — but in actually destroying their heaviest warships in a trade for his lightest assets. Even though he was now losing the battle, he had caused significant damage to the enemy's fleet while only sacrificing the least valuable units in his own. That was what he had wanted all along.

  Hal-Dorat knew that at the beginning of the battle, he was trading starship weight with the enemy in such uneven numbers — 40 to 1 — that would have made any battle tactician proud. He also knew that in the current situation, with his ships much more outnumbered, that the trade was now 10 to 1. It was still a good trade in terms mass to mass, and in a war against an enemy with equivalent technology and skill, that very kill-to-loss ratio was every commander's dream. Although, in this scenario — against this enemy — that trade ratio was not necessary, especially with his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fleet approaching from the rear, just out of scanner range of the enemy's remaining hyperspace probes, with nearly four times as many fast light attack warships combined as the original compliment in his main First fleet.

  So Hal-Dorat did the cowardly but tactically necessary move. He ordered the remaining light attack warships in his First fleet to disengage from the battle with all the enemy's ships.

  Yes, Hal-Dorat mused, once they disengaged, they could combine with the new light and fast warships coming from the three new fleets originating from behind this battlefield and in unison, they would destroy the Pra's remaining heaviest elements who could not run away.

  Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

  Flagship, Beginner’s Luck

  Flag Bridge…

  The enemy ran.

  Vier nodded happily. The remaining feline light-cruisers and destroyers were pulling away from the battlefield in an all-out retreat. Vier sat there and felt a mix of emotions. She felt elation that she had saved the remains of Mu Pei
’s fleet. Dismay that so many spacers had died. Cheated about the imbalance of the trade. She had lost 30 billion tons of warship compared to their loss of less than 1 billion.

  Vier watched as the enemy's hunter-killers scattered in every direction, doing their own version of the Evasion Protocol right in the middle of her fleet.

  Was this a good thing? Of course, it was a good thing. It meant that now she could escape the battle with her remaining units. She could now move her remaining fleet away at the speed of her slowest ship, which was 16,000 SL and outpace the enemy's slowest ship in their main fleet by 2,000 SL— and unless the Cats wanted to reengage with their light warships again, Vier would be free to move away. In time, the distance would be so great that the enemy's main fleet would not be able to follow, and if their hunter-killers did follow, they would be forced to reengage in the very lopsided situation that made them leave in the first place.

  Tapping her armrest, she already knew what she would do next. It would be another twenty minutes before the enemy’s main fleet arrived. As things were, her fleet was stationary. She would have to change that. “All ships…recombine into battle formations. All ships are to head toward direction 44 mark 216, away from that enemy fleet approaching us. Kleingelt out.”

  Vier reclined into her seat. She had not done bad. She had saved 30 percent of her dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, 50 percent of her heavy cruisers, 60 percent of her light cruiser and destroyers, and 45 percent of her fast attack cruisers. It was much better than the expected scenario, which was that her heavy elements would be destroyed and only her lightest ships would escape destruction. Since she had beaten back the enemy’s fast hunter killers, she had no more fears of an engagement with the enemy. The enemy’s main fleet would never catch up with her ships since they were slower…

  Yet, Vier winced. Why were their slowest ships still pursuing like the battle wasn’t over?

  She didn't know. But a new thought suddenly hit her mind. She’d forgotten something that was even more crucial to the battle and the war! The marine cutters, their feline captives, and their fading warp bubble! She pressed a button that opened a channel to the nearest human warship, right next to her last marines.

  “Yes, Admiral?” said a voice.

  “Captain...Appleton? I need to you to connect your warp bubble with the fading warp bubble at coordinates 828.02, 501.23 immediately! There are about 12 marine assault cutters that can be saved.”

  “Yes, ma'am. Will do. Is that all?”

  “Yes, proceed.”

  Appleton's hologram fizzled and Vier sighed. She would never have given that order in an h-space melee battle because Appleton's battlecruiser would be a sitting duck, but now that the enemy was gone...

  Her only regret now was that she hadn't thought about it sooner. It had been four minutes since her last MAB had exploded.

  She hoped it wasn't too late.

  Marine Cutter 001, Delta Battalion

  Cockpit…

  Pilot Fischer panted furiously as he dodged warp holes — holes in a fading warp bubble that opened up to hyperspace. He knew he had little time left and in two minutes, he would be dead when the holes became universal. But like all the other surviving marine cutter pilots, he did his best to keep himself alive.

  He also knew he was doing the same thing that had been done in 17 other MAB bubbles. They had faded when the MABs were destroyed. And those same marine cutter pilots had died when the holes opened everywhere.

  Then a t-transmission popped up his cockpit screens. “Hold on cutter crews! This is captain Applebee of the BC Erlach! We're about to dock with your warp bubble in the direction of coordinates 830, 520! Get your ass over there!”

  Hope suddenly sprang fresh in Warrant Sergeant Fischer's eyes. He saw the side of his fading warp bubble where the new ship was going to dock, and he zoomed for it.

  The problem was, there were so many holes in front of him, and they were increasing.

  He had to do it, Fischer concluded. For the sake of the Battalion Captain in the passenger compartment behind him, and the wounded feline captives there also, his cutter and all it contained was important. And so was his own life.

  He dodged, swiveled — and as new holes in the bubble opened up in front of him — he prayed that he would make it to the new warp bubble that docked all the way at the other end.

  Then finally…he did. His heart thumped madly, and his face was covered in sweat and flushed, but he did it. He entered the new bubble and was safe.

  Using his cockpit sensors, he knew many of the surviving cutter pilots did not. They hadn't been accurate enough, or swift enough, or daring enough, to cross the distance between the holes and the new warp bubble. Then as new holes opened up everywhere making the route impossible, they were going to perish.

  When he glanced at the feline trophy that was compressing and being torn inside out from hyperspace holes that gutted the ship, he felt distaste at not being able to save it.

  His only wish was that the human battlecruiser could extend its warp bubble around the fading feline cruiser, or for that matter, everyone that was inside the fading bubble, but the battlecruiser was not a MAB and therefore not equipped with an h-space suspender that could extend around another vessel. It could only dock with another warp bubble, fading or otherwise.

  Fischer sighed.

  Goodbye everyone and everything.

  Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

  Flagship, Beginner’s Luck

  Flag Bridge…

  So many. So many new enemy units!

  Vier gaped at the emergence of new feline units on the furthest range of her remaining scanner probes. She couldn't believe it — even though it meant she was right all along. “Why... Why didn’t our hyperlight sensor probes detect these additional fleets, Captain?”

  “I—I don’t know, Admiral! Perhaps most of our sensor probes were destroyed… Yes, that must be why, Admiral,” Willock suggested. “We only knew because of the last batch of probes we ejected into surrounding hyperspace to keep tabs on the enemy's main fleet.”

  “Then why didn't we detect them when our probe network was at its fullest, when the enemy left our probes alive by pretending they couldn't beat our probes so easily?”

  “I can only guess...ma'am. Those new fleets must have hid just outside the range of our furthest scanner probes and only sped at us when our probe network was heavily damaged. That, or they have some type of cloaking technology that is impervious to our t-scanners.”

  ...Vier simultaneously believed it and couldn't believe it. She shook her head in a daze. What her flag captain said only confirmed what she already knew and suspected in the deepest regions of her mind.

  This meant trouble.

  Deep trouble.

  If the enemy had four times as much fleet strength as they originally showed, it meant they had plenty of fast attack ships or hunter-killers — or whatever she wanted to call them — that could move faster than 25,000 SL and overtake her remaining slow heavies. It meant her heavies were doomed no matter what. She couldn't try the dispersion method — it was completely ineffective.

  If her heavies were doomed, then so was her flagship, the Beginner's Luck.

  What, in the damnedest world, could she do?

  So as Vier wondered open mouthed, she finally understood why the enemy withdrew his hunter-killers from her fleet when it became obvious she was going to win against those units. The feline commander intended to combine those hunter-killers from his main observable fleet with the new hunter-killers from his new fleets and destroy her at much better odds and more severe kill-to-loss ratios.

  So...as she stared at her transparent holos and the room beyond them, she knew she was fucked.

  Vier continued sitting there, in the middle of the busy bridge with all this technology displayed around her, and suddenly began the childhood habit of biting her nails. She searched her brain and tried to come up with a solution to save her life and the vast majority of her fleet, but foun
d nothing. She was only slightly aware of the officers and ratings who gazed at her in search for guidance and reassurance. Instead, she knew they found bewilderment and cluelessness. She didn't care.

  She. Was. Fucked.

  Everyone was going to die. Her remaining heavies were dead. And so was she.

  Then a thought came to her. She hit the button. “Fleet command net, online!” she shouted.

  Within seconds, faces of the remaining flag officers appeared in front of her.

  No one said a thing. No one knew what to do. The five remaining admirals and commodores before her — out of the original eighteen — appeared to search their heads for a solution — anything... besides the most obvious answer, which was ordering all the fastest ships in the human fleet to run away like hell.

  Vier gazed at her staff... her staff... wondering if she was any different. They looked beaten, mauled over, digested, and then spat out. They were the survivors of the most technologically imbalanced battle in hyperlight humanity had encountered to date.

  We're finished, their expressions seemed to say. Vier wondered — no she knew — that they were a reflection of herself.

  They came up with nothing.

  She wanted to say 'Think of something people' or better yet 'help...please' but she knew it was useless. They were thinking as hard as they could.

  Finally, she blurted, “How the hell do we save 30% of our original dreadnoughts and battlecruisers and the remaining 50% of our heavy cruisers?”

  No one wanted to say 'We can't' but she could read it in their eyes. They were the eyes of fear, the eyes of incoming death, the gazes of dead men. She wanted to save them but...

  It was like a dark room that suddenly became lit. It was so obvious, she wondered why she hadn't thought about it immediately. She must have been overwhelmed with the shock of seeing so many new enemy units that she fell into despair because despair was the most natural thing to do.