Armageddon's Pall: Spiral War Book 4 Read online

  If there was one thing Blazer had hated back at the academy, it had been the deep range patrol. Doing so on active duty at the edge of Gorvian space had proved no better. Flight crews could be out for almost a full cycle, buzzing about a system in order to look into sensor blind spots. They were long, boring, and a crew couldn’t even sleep through them, so stims were all but required. Then there were the catheters.

  Suits had ‘relief systems’ built in, and when the wearer decided that it was time, they activated them. It was never comfortable as the catheters snaked themselves into the wearer’s bladder, less so for solid waste.

  Blazer groaned and twisted his neck as he felt the two tubes retract. Why couldn’t I hold it another hect?

  It had been a full tridec since the Monstero Nach had arrived in the Nimbus System, riding one of the old-style wake ships to their current home. After their last semester at the academy Blazer had never expected that his first assignment would be so… dull. Nor had he ever imagined that he would dread flying. Back at the academy, he’d jumped at the chance to fly. Now, as the junior squadron aboard their ship, the captain routinely tasked them with long low-priority patrols. The senior squadron of Splicer 2000s would always draw the better missions. They flew escorts for transports or their flotilla, or stood watch in their interceptor’s ready positions aboard the ship.

  Time aboard ship hadn’t been much better. Tadeh Qudas would drill them constantly to keep their skills sharp. He’d even taken to setting ambushes for them in random passageways. The UCSBS Mercy being a Shinekian ship was another thing which hadn’t helped matters. The insectoid race kept their environmental settings feeling like a boiler room compared to what he was normally used to. The interior of the ship was almost organic-looking in structure, giving him and the others the impression that they were inside a living creature. The only exceptions to that were the medical bays, hangars, and the passageways connecting those two areas.

  “I’ve got a contact! Stand by, lost it!” Arion called out from his seat behind Blazer.

  I wonder how this all looks beneath the ‘shroud?’ Blazer glanced over at the nebula their ship called home. A lifetime of looking at enhanced images of nebula had lied to him. The collection of gasses and dust didn’t jump out at him with vibrant colors. The clouds of the Nimbus Nebula were a muted grey with just a hint of red around the young local star at the heart of the system. Every once in a while, a static charge would build up into an arcing bolt of lightning which painted the sky blood red for a moment, but that was all.

  “Another big clump forming together?” Blazer asked. They’d chanced down several contacts in their first patrols which had proved to be nothing more than meteoroids or dust clouds drifting into volumes of space where the dust and gas were thinnest.

  “Standby, I’m checking the sensor returns with the other WSOs.”

  Blazer looked over at his wife Marda’s fighter off to his right. His mind drifted back to when he’d been on maintenance duty at the academy, and they’d taken a Feral bomber out on a check flight. They’d almost consummated their relationship in the open bomb bay of the craft before a sabotaged shield emitter had halted them. What I wouldn’t give to have her in one of those bombers right now.

  “Nach Four, Nach Three, were you able to get your med bay duty shifted next cycle?” Blazer called over the link.

  “I’ll have to pull a double on One Oh Two, but yes, you?” Marda replied with a hint of a laugh.

  “I wouldn’t miss our second anniversary for anything short of an attack.”

  “Don’t jinx it.”

  “Contact!” Gokhead, Marda’s WSO, called out over the link. “Definite metallic with a strong thermal signature.”

  Blazer shifted his attention back to his sensor sphere as a fuzzy blob appeared on it. It fluttered on the edge of their sensor range, deeper into the nebula. “Arion, is that the same contact you saw earlier?”

  “Might be. The vector is right. Still can’t get a clear signal, but whatever it is, it’s powered.”

  “Copy that. Nach One Zero, keep your flight on course, but be prepared to back us up. Nach Four, Nach Six, stay on me, let’s go have a look.”

  Blazer twisted his fighter about on an intercept vector with the contact and fired his engines. Thrusters all across his fighter fired to shift his momentum and he rocketed off with his two wingmen in tow. “Arion can we clean up this signal at all?”

  “Only if you want me to go active and alert them to our presence. Other than heat, we’re getting no active emissions.”

  Blazer mulled that over for a moment. If this proved to be a bogus intercept finding out before they burned too much fuel would be best. If it were an active enemy craft, the sensor ping could alert them. Contact with Gorvian craft had been sparse since their glut of attacks over four tridecs ago, one of which killed several of their fellow cadets. Analysis of their data recorders from previous missions in-system revealed that they’d missed what might have been Gorvian craft. Blazer needed to be sure what this contact was.

  “Lead, Four,” Gokhead called out. “I can tag the contact with a single focused sensor pulse, minimal traceability.”

  “Go Four, single pulse. Feed all data to the WSO net.”

  The tachyon-based sensors gave a return so fast it seemed to arrive before it had left as the high-powered sensor ping bypassed much of the nebular interference. The fuzzy contact on Blazer’s sensor sphere resolved into four distinct blips plodding their way through the blood-tinged clouds. “Frag me!”

  “What the Sheol are those things?” Arion asked.

  A blurred image appeared on Blazer’s tactical display. Three distinct elements made up each of the craft, but beyond that, Blazer couldn’t tell much. “Have they reacted to the ping?”

  “Shreg! Yes, they’re coming about.”

  Out of habit, Blazer looked out at the craft. He couldn’t see them at this range but did notice a definite shift in the dust clouds. “Can you determine the new vector?” A green cone appeared on Blazer’s HUD. It didn’t fill him with confidence. “Transmit that to all fighters,” he ordered before keying the link. “One Zero, Lead. Looks like they might be heading your way. No idea if they have detected you yet. We’ll pursue and attempt to flush them out.”

  “Copy that, Lead.”

  Tim'Bash 003

  "All Units, continue scanning! My computer has confirmed that the energy burst was an active scanner pulse," the Gorvian flight leader called out with a feral intensity. Inside its cramped cockpit, the thirty metra tall being scanned the dust-choked nebula around fam. The semi-organic harness webbing held the pilot in place as fae stared out the bulbous egg-shaped cockpit. The fighter’s passive sensors painted a frustratingly incomplete picture.

  Their’s was a recon mission into this nebula. They were to root out the Confederation they knew to be here, but not make contact. Now that the Dondicks had detected them, they had no choice but to attack, and leave no survivors. Anger seethed up inside the flight leader and fae lashed out, slamming a fist into the cockpit wall. The action sent fam bouncing about in fas harness, the sickly green shock gel sloshing around and across fas body. The intimate connection the fluid based inertial damping system offered almost let fam feel the fighter’s pain.

  “My Liege,” one of fas flight called back. “My sensors detect nothing but the nebular debris.”

  “That sensor pulse didn’t generate itself,” the flight leader growled. “They have seen us. If we do not eliminate them and bring trophies of triumph home than we would be better off submitting to the void.”

  “Liege,” another pilot called. “I detect thermal traces of three fighters beyond the gas cloud ahead. Profile matches that of Dondick Splicer 5000s. Transmitting data.”

  The flight leader examined the sensor profile and growled in approval, tasting the blood of fas prey. It had been far too long since fae’d hunted. “All fighters, power up weapons, let us stain the void with their blood.”

  M
onstero Nach 010

  Every fiber of Zithe’s being screamed at him to stay alert as he drifted past the edge of the nebular dust cloud. His hunting instincts were in full play while he awaited his prey. In his youth, he’d hunted like this many times with the pack. He and his cousins would drive boars and other prey out of the bush so that his father and uncles could strike. Now he would take the role of the alpha predator with Blazer driving out the target. It felt good.

  If Zithe had had hair, then the ones on the back of his neck would have stood at rapt attention. They’re here. “Rudjick, full power to shields,” he ordered and keyed the link. “All units, One Zero, here they come.”

  “One Zero, Eight, are you sure? Bichard has nothing on sensors,” Chris replied.

  “Trust me, they’re coming in now and coming in hot,” Zithe replied and scanned the dust cloud.

  “Trust the wolf folks. Instincts beat out tech,” Rudjick laughed.

  “Break formation!” Zithe called out as a shock ran up his spine. He pushed hard over on his stick, jamming his throttle forward as a quartet of Gorvian fighters exploded from the cloud of hydrogen coated dust. Zithe got his first good look at the craft as they opened fire. An egg-shaped central fuselage, with a pair of cannons slung beneath, hung between two large cylindrical engines, massive thruster ports covering them. At least twice the size and maybe three times the mass of his fighter, the powerful engines and thrusters made it look at least as maneuverable, maybe more so.

  Zithe spun his fighter about to engage the leader and squeezed his trigger. Fiery trails flashed in the darkness as the Plasma Laser (Plaser) rounds ignited the thick gaseous hydrogen that permeated this region of the nebula. He hadn’t expected that but kept up the barrage. A section of the Gorvian fighter broke away and exploded a moment later, dazzling Zithe’s eyes. “What the Sheol?”

  “External fuel tank?” Rudjick guessed. “That was one heck of an explosion though. Hydrogen levels here are higher than expected, but oxy levels are non-existent. We’ll get bright flashes but no real booms unless you get too close.”

  “Copy that. Lead, One Zero, we have engaged the enemy.”

  “Copy One Zero, you have the point. We are en-route,” Blazer replied.

  Zithe felt his lip curl in excitement. His fighter groaning around him from the high-G turn, he dropped in behind the lead Gorvian fighter. All the while he had to ignore the protests at the back of his mind. Never attack a prey twice your size without the rest of the pack. He checked the status of his wingmen. They had engaged their own targets. Two of the craft drawing Chris into a classic bait and hook. Have to make this quick.

  Zithe poured relativistic plasma into the rear of the fighter before it spun about and brought its cannons to bear on him. Zithe slammed his throttle down, dropping below the Gorvian’s line of fire just as plasma rounds raced over his head. He continued his own assault and watched as armor began to blast away from the craft. No shields. The Gorvian fighter pitched down to keep their guns on Zithe. Zithe slid his fighter aside and switched over to his bio cannons. The organic rounds splashed against the hull of the Gorvian ship. The semi-organic rounds of the Donvarion weapon ate through the metallic casing into the plasma bulb within. In just a few centipulses one of the engines exploded.

  The fighter cartwheeled aside as plasma vented into space and Zithe flicked up the safety cover on his missile launcher. Selecting an IR seeker, he fired. The missile vaulted out of its launcher behind him then raced ahead towards the fountain of fire escaping the Gorvian craft.

  Zithe didn’t even bother to wait. He vectored away before the missile drove itself home and detonated. The blast sheared the engine free of the cockpit and ruptured the fusion core. The short-lived miniature star that emerged from the blast shattered what remained of the fighter.

  Before Zithe could call out to Chris a set of vectors appeared on his HUD. “She’s already bringing them to us,” Rudjick commented.

  “Nice,” Zithe growled and followed the course. “How are Mikle and Acknit?”

  “Holding their own. Blazer and company are vectoring straight to assist them.”

  As if in response, the three fighters of Blazer’s flight burst from the dust cloud. The guns of all three blazed away on the fighter closing on Mikle and Acknit’s tail. The combined assault of the three fighters decimated the craft, shearing its engines free of the cockpit pod.

  Zithe shifted his focus back to the task at hand. As Chris brought the two hostiles into view, he opened fire on the trail fighter. His shots went wide as the fighter slid aside then bounded up towards him. Cursing the clever pilot, Zithe slid aside and rolled his fighter. Popping out missiles as he did so, he vectored towards the dust cloud. Plasma rounds pounded his fighter and Zithe pushed down hard on his throttle, tickling his afterburner to kill his previous momentum and escape.

  “I’m on him One Zero,” Gavit called out.

  Alert lights sprang to life on Zithe’s board as the G-forces crushed him back into his seat. The fighter rocked aside and his roll slowed. Zithe checked his damage display. Half of his left wing registered red and everything outboard of the plaser cannon was black. He didn’t dare to look and pressed on. “Hurry it up Six.”

  “Already on him,” Gavit called. A moment later the blasts ceased and the red dot behind Zithe on his sensor sphere disappeared. “Fighter down. You’re clear.”

  “Last one’s mine,” Chris called out.

  Zithe panted and looked over as Chris attacked her target, pouring fire into the fighter’s shields until they collapsed. The shields failed in a violent burst, burning out relays and breakers throughout the massive craft. The backlash of energy fused the main connections to the power core. A few more blasts raked the back of the fighter, digging great furloughs in the cockpit armor as the fighter drifted away, dead.

  Monstero Nach 04

  “Marda, pull up alongside. I want to try and get a detailed scan,” Gokhead requested after the engagement had ended.

  Marda took a hard look at the disabled Gorvian craft. Despite the damage Chris had done to it, it was still the most intact of any of the quartet. “Are you sure it’s safe? The pilot might still be alive.”

  “Just keep clear of an ejection path then. There isn’t anything else that the pilot could do at this point.”

  “Ok. Lead, Four, we’re going to move in for a detailed scan.”

  “Copy that Four. Don’t get too close.”

  Taking a deep breath, Marda pulled her fighter in towards the drifting hulk as Gokhead scanned it. “Let’s just tag it for a retrieval ship,” she suggested as she vectored around the top of the craft.

  “They might not get here before it drifts back into the nebula. Then it’s as good as gone, better to get some data now while we’re here.”

  Marda flexed her hands on her controls, ready to get out of there in case the pilot was playing dead. Without warning, the clamshell canopy split open and a sickly green glob of shock gel burst forth. Marda slammed down on her throttle but it was too late. The blob slammed into her fighter, sending it tumbling.

  Marda fought for control, her craft sluggish in response. As the shock gel cleared she saw why. Staring at her through its silicasteel helmet, the Gorvian pilot clung to the wing of her fighter. To her horror it reached forward, wrapping its massive hand around her canopy. Pulling itself up, it straddled her cockpit like a neigh.

  Shock overrode every sense as she locked eyes with the creature. There was murderous intent there as a cruel smirk crossed its twisted features. Memories of what happened to Nobgal Five tridecs earlier triggered a flight response and adrenaline coursed through her system. “Not going to happen,” she yelled and pitched over hard to shake the monster loose. It took all of Marda’s concentration not to look while she twisted her controls back and forth.

  The dim light of the nebula grew even darker a moment later as the Gorvian wrapped itself around her canopy. She hauled back on the stick then forward again, tickling her afterbur
ner, the silicasteel canopy groaning in response. She keyed the link in response. “It’s trying to crush the canopy!”

  “Four, Six, assume the following vector, now,” Gavit hollered through the link and a course marker lit up her HUD.

  Marda lined up with the marker and shuddered as the Gorvian drew back only to punch the canopy. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast!”

  Plaser rounds lit up the canopy a moment later and Marda jerked to look up. Six rounds tore into the Gorvian. Three into its center of mass, one in each shoulder, and a final round ripped its head free. Marda pushed down on the throttle and the Gorvian corpse separated from her craft, a trail of grey-green blood marking her course. A look to her left however revealed that one of the Gorvian’s arm maintained a death grip on her reverse thrust housing. She kicked the fighter to the right, but the arm just flailed aside, still attached.

  “Four, Lead, status?” Blazer called.

  “Intact. Thank God,” she replied and turned to look at the Gorvian’s corpse. The sight turned her stomach, but she choked back the bile. Sweat seemed to turn icy in an instant and she wrapped her arms around herself. She rubbed them in a vain effort to stay warm.

  “Are you sure you're okay in there Four?” Blazer continued, his voice softening.

  "I’m a little shaken up, but fine,” she replied and pulled alongside her husband’s fighter. She nodded at him, the adrenaline high dumping her energy. “Gok, how are you doing?”

  “I think I’ll settle for distant scans from now on," he replied, shamed.

  Marda twisted about to look. His voice had rung through the cockpit. In the back seat, he tugged at his helmet to sop up the sweat on his own brow. It was rare to see him pull out of the computer link he loved to immerse himself in while in flight.

  “Copy that Four. One Zero, what’s your status?”

  “They took about half my wing,” Zithe replied with a growl. “We can make it home, but don’t expect anything fancy.”

  “Copy that. All units form up. We’re heading home,” Blazer ordered.