Deep Space Endeavor 3 Death Match (25 page)

“You do understand that if we lose the battle here, it doesn’t bode well for us winning the war. Are there contingency plans for that eventuality?”

“None that I’m aware of. I’ll let you know if I find out anything there. Dyson, out.” She wanted to curse herself for being so stupid. All of them, Togglasem, Enosal the Chairman, they had all been so sure that Garrinoras’ forces would wither at the site of two hundred
Battle Hammers
that they had never made any further preparations. It was too late to be calling the alliance now, if the pirates tried anything it would take them too long to muster their fleets for an appropriate response. Their failure to take the threat seriously enough just might wind up emerging them in a long and costly war that no one would really win.

Admiral Dyson made her next transmission to Ginderbar. She explained the intelligence coming in and was told there would be twenty-five extra ships on the way. There would still be almost one hundred twenty-five ships plus the planetary defenses protecting Ginderbar. She had hoped for more ships, but could not blame the Chief of State for not wanting to leave Ginderbar unprotected. The reinforcements would arrive by nine o’clock that night, Zinnebailan time. She only hoped that would be good enough. As she continued to muse on the possibility of the upcoming battle over Zinnebulous, an incoming alert brought her attention into focus.

“Admiral, we have a fleet exiting light space,” a young bridge officer called.

“How many? Friend or foe?” She quickly asked. Before the officer could answer, she saw the hard light of enemy lasers begin to streak out from the pirate fleet. She received a definitive answer when more laser fire began to streak out from the ships that had just arrived. The aliens had them in a cross fire and most of Chawanas ships had joined them, boxing them in on three sides. So far, none of the planetary defense systems had turned on them, so it was likely that it was up to individual captains which side they wished to be on. Before the first laser had found the shields of a
Battle Hammer,
the Admiral had sent out the command to the fleet. “Fire at will, seek only your pre-arranged targets until it gets too hairy. Then stay with your groups and destroy them at will.” She wasn’t too worried, their plan was sound, and they were far more prepared than their enemy thought. Still, it might be close, and close was no good for the sector.

Captain Yartan was impressed with the human response time to their attack. Opening up without warning had provided no advantage at all. Now, they were in the middle of it.
Battle Hammers
were picking off smaller targets nearly at will, but at the same time, his bigger ships were holding their own and dishing out some punishment. This would be a pretty even battle, which bode well for Garrinoras’ plans for a prolonged war within the sector.

By this time, the
Battle Hammers
had broken off into groups of six and were harrying pirate and alien vessels all over the system. Thousands of
Spykes
were locked in combat with
Razzers
and several other types of alien fighters. The mercenary fighters were outnumbered almost two to one when Kaldor’s fleet launched their
Cutters
to help them out. The extra fighters helped, but they were still severely outnumbered. Thankfully, the
Battle Hammers
were doing a good job eliminating the alien gunships and the sheer skill of the human pilots was keeping them in the fight.

Admiral Dyson’s ship was in pursuit of one of the battleships of Chawanas. She hated to fire on them, she had so hoped they would be allies. The fact that twenty of their ships and their planetary defenses were held back suggested that somewhere on Chawanas some of them still held out hope. Her ship opened up with all weapons and quickly overwhelmed the Farannsian shields. They scored a direct hit on the alien sublight engines, but could not move in for the kill when two ships took up defensive positions in front of it and began to dish out punishment. They had already lost twenty or so Battle Hammers and six of Kaldor’s ships, but they had taken out well over forty enemy vessels. They thought they might be able to turn this into a rout when suddenly, laser fire began to pour out of satellite installations from around the planet and twenty more Farannsian ships joined the fray.

In a matter of moments, she had lost ten more ships. A window opened and she fired all batteries on the damaged Farannsian ship, obliterating it. She wanted to send them a message that their betrayal was not appreciated. As the explosion sent fragments of the battleship in every direction, she could already see
Spykes
and assault shuttles making runs on the planetary defenses. If their fortunes didn’t change quickly, they would be forced to abandon their position and Colonel Marcos with it. Admiral Dyson silently vowed that would not be the case, even as she bit back a curse as a Kaldorian Destroyer was surrounded and annihilated. By this point, the aliens had the slight edge in ships, but with the planetary defenses, Admiral Dyson didn’t think the battle could be won without reinforcements.                         

Suddenly her heart stopped as she heard the words, “Admiral, we have another fleet exiting light space,” in a wary tone, from the same young bridge officer.

“How large and where are they from?”

“Unknown and unknown. We should have some more information soon.”

“Incoming transmission,” the communications officer called.

“On screen, I guess we’re about to find out who they are.”

As a face materialized on the screen, the entire bridge crew of the
Reclaimer
was on edge. They had counted one hundred ninety-two ships, which didn’t match the reported size of any of the fleets of Zinnebulous’ known allies. Her fleet and the entire sector would be in for some serious trouble if Garrinoras had an additional fleet of that size in the mix. The rest of the sector wouldn’t fare well either. The face on the other side of the transmission was human, so that was a good start. She still had no idea who was heading her way, or why. The man was a military man in his late forties with a full head of graying hair and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He wore a white uniform laden with medals.

“Admiral Dyson, my name is Admiral Sonnadall, of the Hyperian destroyer,
Vengeance.
I am reporting to you with twelve fleet groups from the Royal Hyperian Space Navy, courtesy of King Dominus.”

Admiral Dyson breathed a visible sigh of relief and her bridge crew let out a cheer. “Happy to have you, please, pick a target and open fire. The Kaldorians are with us.” She sent over a quick description of their vessels and Sonnadall acknowledged receipt. “Not that I’m complaining, but how is it you came to be here?”

“King Dominus didn’t like the look of things over Chawanas, and wanted to insure the safety of Colonel Marcos. He also figured he still owes the pirates for helping the Conglomerate dogs chase his daughter across Pandara. Admiral Vantilas speaks very highly of you and has given us strict orders to put our fleet under your command. I am sorry we’re late, and also if our approach rattled you, but we did not wish to alert any of your enemies to our arrival. The only ones who knew about this ahead of time were the King and Colonel Marcos. The Colonel didn’t know we would be able to send this many, but our war with the Conglomerate is going very well. They no longer pose a significant threat to Hyperia.” He paused a moment before continuing. “Just so you know, our King doesn’t consider this to be an act of generosity. He believes that he owes Colonel Marcos more than he could ever repay, so he sent us as an attempt to give a little bit back. He knows how fond of Ginderbar and Kaldor the Colonel is, so he would like to help make sure you are not outgunned in this important first engagement of the war.”

As the fleet moved closer and their image grew in the viewport, Admiral Dyson could begin to make out the shapes of the Hyperian Destroyers, the powerful Melee Cruisers and the very effective Gunships of Hyperia. She breathed a sigh of relief as she looked into the monitor and replied. “Thank you, Admiral; your fleet is a most welcome addition. Your King is both generous and wise.” Admiral Dyson watched as the Hyperian fleet broke into its battle groups and systematically began to take control of the theatre. They were truly impressive to watch. She sent out a transmission to the rest of her fleet to take up support positions alongside the Hyperian battle groups. The Hyperian Destroyers were dishing out serious punishment, but the most impressive display came from the Melee Cruisers. She had never seen one in action and after this hoped to never be on the wrong side of one.

The Hyperian Destroyers and Gunships, surrounded by hundreds of their
Predator
fighters were fighting their way to the alien’s big ships when they would suddenly make a path for the Melee Cruisers. The cruiser would then accelerate faster than the Admiral thought possible and literally ram into the side of the enemy vessel, destroying it instantly while suffering almost no damage to itself. It was quite possibly the most impressive thing she had ever seen in battle. Within minutes, that scene had played out on over thirty enemy ships and moments later, the planetary defenses were neutralized. While that was being taken care of, the remainder of the enemy fleet withdrew from battle and jumped to light space to lick their wounds.
Predators
,
Spykes
and
Cutters
flew down and destroyed the remaining
Razzers
as they tried to bug out.

As Admiral Dyson heard the celebratory shouts from around the fleet, she quickly brought them back to order. “Well done, all of you. This could have gone quite badly if King Dominus had not been so generous as to send his best people to help us. I need a status report as soon as possible so we can begin to redeploy in case of another attack.” As the statistics began to come in, she noticed it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, still, a lot of good people had just given their lives to save the sector from war. She still had one hundred forty-eight
Battle Hammers
and thirty-seven Kaldorian ships. They had lost sixty-five vessels. The Hyperians had also lost seven of their Gunships, but were otherwise intact. Admiral Dyson contacted Admiral Sonnadall on a private channel to convey her thanks. “Thank you for showing up when you did. You may have just saved our sector from a long and costly conflict.”

“You are most welcome, Admiral. Truth be told, we haven’t seen much action against the Conglomerate and I needed to see how prepared our people were, just in case the Conglomerate finds a way back into the war.”

“Well, you can come destroy pirates any time if you guys need the practice.” They both laughed a little as she added. “Seriously, thank you, and please thank your King for us.”

“I will, Admiral, and we are going to stick around until Colonel Marcos is safely off of the planet, so while we should definitely remain vigilant, I’m not expecting anymore alien trouble.”

“Me either, and I’m quite thankful for that.” The transmission ended and Admiral Dyson went back to giving out new assignments, checking on the status of rescued pilots and seeing to damaged vessels. There was still a lot of work to be done, but at least they would still be here to support the Colonel when he was leaving the planet.

______

Captain Yartan stalked across the bridge of the
Dominator
.
There was no way that just happened. It has to be some kind of cruel joke
. The whole plan was predicated on Ginderbar and Kaldor presenting no more than two hundred fifty ships and his fleet was winning. Once his people had control of the planetary defenses, and the final twenty Farannsian ships, it should have been an easy victory. Chawanas had really come through for them. Captain Xia was able to keep Ginderbar from sending any more ships and everything was going better than planned. He felt he was less than ten minutes from winning the battle when suddenly an additional one hundred ninety-two Hyperian ships had entered the system. He knew there was no way they could overcome that new development. They tore through his fleet faster than they could retreat. It would seem that once again, the best-laid plans of Garrinoras had been foiled by humans.

Captain Trae-bar’s fleet had jumped back to Zinnebulous, while his fleet wound up at Xenul. As he thought about what to do, he began to think of the previous day’s fight. Colonel Marcos was dominating the death match even with Garrinoras cheating. He no longer felt certain his boss would win the match. He had just sent a transmission to Captain Trae-bar and Captain Xia; if Garrinoras was to lose, all of their fleets would jump to Zinnebulous. They would regroup, choose a new leader and decide on the best course of action. If he somehow pulled it off and won, they would all wait for his orders. One thing was certain; with Hyperia involved, they would not be conquering the sector any time soon. For now, all they could do was wait another day to see if their boss won or if there would be someone new at the helm of Garrinoras’ organization.

______

It was time to go back out into the arena for the second day of the death match. Jesse, armed with his Hyperian battle sword and his fake limp, was ready to step out of the contestant tunnel. He once again marveled at the size and scope of the arena. The birds were still circling overhead as if in protest of the invasion of their territory. He turned to his Entourage, and made sure they would be ready for any Zinnebailan nonsense. He called Josiah aside and said, “If any of those beast show up, send Shadow and Commando, don’t wait for my signal. If it’s more than they can take, send the cats, too. I can’t fight another one of those things and still beat Garrinoras. Not to mention I have no desire to smell them up close again.”