The first day, p.17
The First Day, page 17
part #1 of Vanguard Series
“Sir, our shields are down. All batteries except C port side are offline.” He paused. “Damage control reports major damage on all decks, plasma fires on all decks, hull bre...” the avatar began, but was cut off as another explosion tore through the bridge.
“Report!” Koranshu cried, pushing the dead helmsman off the chair and assuming control. “Report!” he again cried, but no answer came. He looked around to see Hornet’s decapitated avatar sprawled over the console. “Hornet, report.”
“Situation critical, main re..re..reactor overload in seven minutes, emergency venting has failed.”
“Eject the reactor.”
‘Unnnnnable to commmply, ejection system is damaged,” Hornet replied.
“Give me ship-wide,” Koranshu said.
“Ship wideeee aye.”
“This is the Captain, all hands abandon ship, repeat all hands abandon ship.”
“Hornet, take command of C battery. Continuous fire at the enemy, and have what remains of our drones protect the escape pods.”
“Sir, you neeeed to get out too.”
“No, my friend. If this is your end, it shall be mine too.”
“But, sir...”
“Captain’s prerogative.”
The intercom crackled to life, as the chief engineer’s voice boomed. “Bridge, Engine Room, respond.”
“Chief, I ordered an evacuation. What the hell are you still doing here?”
“My job, sir. I’ve been able to bypass the reactor’s protocols and directly inject the counter agent, forcing it to shut down. The reactor’s not gonna blow, but we’re running on back-up generators. They won’t last long, then we’ll be completely dead in the water.”
There was a sudden tremendous explosion from within Hornet as she was struck by several more missiles and shot, sending a violent tremor through the ship. Captain Koranshu knew the ship was finished. She had taken so much damage, the helm was sluggish, and the engines were failing. With the emergency forcefields holding most of the ship together, there could be no escape.
“Chief, we’re not gonna make it. Time to get off the ship.” There was no response. “Chief!” Again silence. “Hornet, put the Chief on screen.”
“The Chiiiief’s dead, sir. Part of the superstruuuucture has collapsed in the engine room,” Hornet reported as showers of sparks rained down.
Through the flickering, damaged view screen, Koranshu watched as two of the enemy escorts cut across Hornet’s bow firing remorselessly into her and at her fleeing escape pods.
“All power to the forward shield, lay in a collision course.” The ship’s nose turned towards the lead escort and began moving towards it. The enemy seemed unaware of the danger and continued their course. Too late did they realise what Hornet was attempting.
“It’s been a pppppleasure serving with you, Captain,” Hornet said.
“The honour was all mine,” Koranshu replied.
The enemy barely had time to react, slowly beginning to turn away. But they had too little time, and Hornet ploughed headlong into the flank of the lead escort. As she tore through the enemy vessel, she sliced through the ship’s fuel tanks which ignited, blowing the Hornet and three of the enemy ships apart in a brilliant but short-lasting purple and orange fireball.
Chapter 12
On Vanguard’s bridge a deathly silence fell as they watched Hornet’s last act of defiance, unable to come to her aid. Even Vanessa stopped for a brief moment. DeLancy was quick to act.
“Vanguard, launch rescue drones, search for survivors and her AI She might still be salvageable.” He paused. “Bring us back around, take us straight into…”
“Sir, I’m detecting multiple ships dropping out of warp on the edge of the system.”
“Friendlies?” Hunter asked.
“Negative, sir. I’m not able to connect with any of them,” Vanguard said after attempting to connect with the AI of the new ships, a security method for verifying ship ID’s.
“How many?” DeLancy asked.
“I’m detecting at least a thousand new ships, over two hundred of them appear to be capital ships.”
“How long til they’re in weapons range?”
“About five minutes, sir.”
“Have all ships regroup close to the planet, begin landing and rearming the fighters, and contact the ground batteries. We’ll need their support.”
“Aye, sir.”
“We’re going to need that reactor back online.” He turned. “Bill, get down to engineering, help the chief speed things up.”
“On my way,” he replied.
“Hixxs, you’re going to need to co-ordinate our forces to achieve maximum effect. Think the old cyber brain’s up to it?” DeLancy asked with a smile.
“Piece of cake,” she replied confidently, as always.
“Commander Tarim, deploy all our mines, covering the most likely invasion routes to the planet, and launch defence satellites to cover our backs,” DeLancy ordered.
“Brown, how’s the analysis going?” Hixx asked.
“Difficult. I’ve never encountered shielding like this before. Whatever particles that it’s composed of are dampening our sensors.”
“What about their weapons?” DeLancy asked.
“Well, it appears to be some form of degenerate photonic energy,” Brown replied. “Our shield matrix can easily cope with it, but older shields will take considerably more damage.”
“How so?” Hixx queried.
“The DP energy creates a phermaic field around itself.” He paused. “Now, when a phermaic field encounters an electric field it causes a lensing effect that seems to amplify the DP energy by around twenty percent.” Brown paused. “Older shield systems create a much larger field than Barydinonic ones do.”
“Would the same be true for the marines? The particle shield of their armour has an EM signature?” Hixx asked.
“If their ground weapons use the same form of energy, then yes it would.”
“Can it be counteracted?” DeLancy queried.
“I don’t know, sir.” Brown paused. “We need more information.”
“Contact Jennings, inform him of this intel.”
A lull had developed in the ground battle, with the enemy having fallen back into the jungle. They were still harassing the defensive line with sporadic long-range weapon fire. The armour had attempted to pursue the retreating enemy, but once they were a hundred metres past the ridge, they came under heavy fire from the treeline, where the enemy seemed to have established heavy weapons. One of the tanks took a direct hit and exploded into a brilliant blue fireball. The normally green plasma fire was tainted blue by the AG particles. The marines and GalInf wasted no time in strengthening the defences and clearing the dead and wounded back into the fortress. In the command post Jennings, Doix and Commander Shaef had gathered around the ops table.
“I don’t understand why they fell back, sir,” Shaef said. “They had the centre hard pressed, we were in serious danger of being overrun.”
“They have taken heavy losses though,” Doix said. “However, I’m certain that they’re not done yet, most likely they pulled back to regroup and try a different strategy.”
“Or they’re digging in to consolidate their foothold?” Jennings ventured. “Regardless of why...”
“Sir,” Dillon interrupted, “you might want to hear this.”
“What is it?” Jennings asked.
“I'm not sure, sir. I can tell you it’s not an Alliance comm-signal.” As Dillon played the signal Jennings, Doix and Shaef listened to the series of clicks and pops intently.
“Sounds like an insectoid language,” Shaef posed.
“Could be, it has some similarities with other insectoid languages we know,” Doix paused. “Hey, play it again,” he said. Listening to the signal again, his ears pricked up. “There it is, there's another part to this signal, up in the ultra-sonic wavelength.” He paused. “Wait, there’s more than two levels of it, much more. It could be enemy communications,” he added, glancing at Jennings.
“Possible, or perhaps they're attempting to jam our signals.”
“I don't think so, sir. If it was, we wouldn't be able to have field comms,” Dillon stated. “I agree with the Major, it does sound like comms.”
“I think you may be right,” Aria interrupted.
“How so?” Shaef asked.
“Well analysing the signal, you can see the same frequencies repeated, but not in pattern,” she replied, bringing a display of the signal up on the holo-table.
“Ok,” Jennings said, eying the display. “Better send a copy of the signal to Vanguard, have them analyse and attempt to translate it asap.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Do you mind if I study the signal some more?” Aria asked.
“Sure, if you think you can help.”
“Well, I got my degree in exolinguistics, so…”
“So, I should just shut up and let you get on with it.” Jennings grinned.
“Pretty much,” she smiled in reply.
“Colonel, message from Vanguard. Enemy weapons’ fire is being amplified by electro fields, they recommend turning off our shields.”
“That explains why our armour’s not as effective as usual,” Doix stated.
“Understood. Pass the word shields off, and get Naules team working on it.”
“Aye, sir,” Dillon replied.
“Wish we knew who these bastards are,” Shaef stated.
“I might have something here that’ll help with that,” Jones interjected as he entered the command post, followed by a combat drone who was carrying the corpse of one of the aliens.
“Good work Jones, have that sent to medical. Get an autopsy started; I want to know everything there is to know about these bastards.”
“I can tell you one thing,” Jones began. “They die like every fucker else.” He grinned, choosing this moment to wipe the blood off his machete.
“Any other perils of wisdom?” Jennings asked.
“Plenty, but I hardly think now’s the time,” Jones said with a look of deadly seriousness about him. “But check this out,” Jones said, pulling the creature’s bottom jaw open. As he did it split into two, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “Look familiar?” he asked.
“A triaxial bite,” Jennings stated.
“Could be the same fuckers who hit that fod base,” Doix stated.
“Golden cigar for the Major,” Jones said in agreement.
“Once Jenkins has analysed it, we’ll have confirmation.” He paused. “Anything else?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure our friends received an order to pull back.”
“What makes you think that?” Jennings asked.
“Well, the ones where I was just seemed to stop as if they had heard a noise, then they began to retreat, and an orderly retreat at that,” he said, taking out his water bottle and having a drink.
“We've just been listening to something that I'm told could well be the enemy comms.”
“We could use some more intel, sir. Permission to take a recon out, see what our friends are up to,” Jones said.
“Very well, Jones. Take a Rover and have a look-see, no heroics though. They spot you double time your ass back, also dispatch four platoons and a section of artillery, reoccupy the ridge.”
“Understood, I’ll have McKay organise the ridge,” Jones replied.
“Sir,” Dillon’s voice trembled. “Hornet’s, Hornet’s been blown up, sir,” he gulped, at which all noise seemed to cease in the room. “Another thousand enemy ships have entered the system. Vanguard’s falling back to the planet; all ground batteries are being redirected to support them.”
“Looks like this may take a while,” Jennings said.
“Guaranteed there’ll be reinforcements joining our friends soon,” Doix said.
“Any chance of a transfer to the supply corps, sir?” Jones joked as he reloaded his rifle.
“Think I’ll join you” Doix added as all three grinned.
“Jones better have two of the Berserkers move up to the ridge as well, might get a little rough.”
“I’m on it,” he said, replacing his helmet and racing out the command post.”
“Sir, we’d better get back to the line and prepare as best as possible,” Doix said.
“Very well.” As he spoke another group of soldiers entered. These were the engineers, and they wore the Vulcan variant of the Warfighter armour. This variant was augmented by several tools and other devices the engineers required.
“Sir, engineers reporting in.”
“Good, follow Major Tyria. He’ll show you where you’re needed.”
“Let’s go, people,” Doix said, leading the group of twenty heavily laden troops out of the command post.
In the operations room of Earth Orbital Command, nearly everyone was stopped watching various view screens as Phil Steadman’s report was being aired. A stunned atmosphere had gripped everyone. Voices murmured to each other about friends, family, is this real? Captain Spence stood at the door to his office for a moment before speaking.
“Your attention, please!” he cried, instantly snapping everyone out of their shock. “I’ve just received confirmation from Supreme Admiral Moore that the attack is real, and invasion forces have crossed over the entire length of the outer arm deep space border.” He paused. “Time is short. The enemy has caught us off guard. We don’t know who they are or what their objectives are, and they have been completely unresponsive to all attempts to communicate.” He paused again, eying the people of his command. Nervous, angry, shocked faces stared back. “What I can tell you is that as of this moment, we are at war.” He paused. “Time is short, so get to work.” Instantly a flurry of activity and noise erupted as the work began.
On planets throughout the Alliance, news of the attacks broke. On thousands of worlds, trillions of beings watched as the Supreme High Consul, an Esterian woman named Nerax Flistii, took to the podium. Behind her stood several members of the government and military.
“Citizens of the Alliance,” she began, “It is with a great sadness and a heavy heart that I stand here today to confirm that at approximately fourteen forty-five galactic standard time an unknown aggressor launched a full scale invasion across our deep space border.” She continued. “As yet we do not know who they are or what they want, as so far all attempts to communicate have been rebuffed.” She paused, eying the assembly and the myriad of expressions that met her gaze. “I must also add that even now as we speak our brave military forces are engaging this enemy across multiple sectors, and that we are mobilising all available assets to meet this threat.” She briefly halted allowing the assembly to process what they had just heard. “I know the prospect of war scares many of you, myself included, but sometimes we are left with no choice but to fight,” she stated. “We are a strong society that’s foundations were forged in the fires of war. We have withstood many aggressors and overcome all obstacles in our history, and we will again here.” She stated. “Our courage, our skill, our ethics and our unshakeable unity are our greatest strengths. They will lead us to victory, in this we are resolute,” she affirmed. As soon as she had concluded, there was a great noise as the assembled media tried to question her. “Please,” she said, holding up her hand. “Please report this for now,” she said. “We will update you on the situation as more information becomes available, thank you,” she added, turning and leaving the podium, and as she did the Norn consul took to the stage.
“I would like to add to my brethren around the galaxy,” he began, “qal Hatic Ankaza Brisc Dunua (War Comes Warriors to Arms),” the ambassador said in the Norn native language. This was a command from millennia ago, given by the Emperor to declare war and summon his warriors to battle.
On Racorak, the Norn home world, this phrase was met with a great cheer that arose from the Imperial Academy and training grounds, the pre-eminent military academy in the known universe, as the millions of cadets welcomed their chance for glory, especially from the Norns. Norn culture is very warrior based. They love fighting and seek every opportunity to gain honour and glory, the only thing they value higher is loyalty. The streets began to fill as thousands of Norn men and women who were not part of the regular military forces marched. They were led by their Hakt Curals (Clan Chiefs) and made their way singing their great battle songs as they went to the military academy to enlist as war parties known as the Reaver Order, as was Norn tradition. The news was greeted with almost the same enthusiasm by the Kronons. They had always been a militaristic people and were renowned for their aggressiveness and total lack of fear.
Throughout the Alliance military bases, shipyards and star docks in the Milky Way, thousands of ships became a hive of activity in minutes as the Alliance began to mobilise its massive military machine. Transport and cargo ships bringing crew, soldiers, equipment and munitions docked almost on a minutely basis. Other ships and fleets were being redirected from training or other now unnecessary activities to close on the invasion force to harass until the main fleets were ready. On dozens of planets, millions of troops began preparing accordingly. Defences were manned, transport ships loaded troops and vehicles and equipment, all preparing for the coming struggle. As the military prepared, trillions sat to digest the news they had just heard. Many worried for friends, family or loved ones. Among these was Jennings’s wife.
Vanguard, Narulh and Brezan had taken position close to the planet in an attempt to block the landing of additional enemy forces. Bandit sat slightly behind them, surrounded by fighters and drones. Cerberus with her cloak restored, feigned a retreat, heading to the dark side of the moon before cloaking. With a faked warp jump event, the enemy assumed she had headed out of the system. Coming back around the moon, Cerberus took position some five hundred miles off Vanguard’s port bow. The ships sat waiting for the onslaught to begin as the armada arrayed against them drew closer and closer. Vanguard having the biggest and heaviest guns now began to open fire with her main batteries and artillery emplacement, both hurling pulses of plasma towards the encroaching fleet. As Vanguard began firing the enemy fighters swarmed towards the Alliance ships, scores of enemies were vaporised as plasma bursts and the A.M. batteries targeted and tore through them. Brezan and Narulh along with Vanguard’s secondary batteries began to add their fire into the maelstrom. The crossfire laid down by Vanguard and Brezan had forced the enemy fighters to bunch together seeking their way through a small inexplicable gap left between the crossfire. As the first of the enemy fighters came through the firestorm, they were pounced upon by Alliance fighters and drones which, taking advantage of the closely packed ships, were able to make every shot count, and the enemy fighters scrambled in every direction.
