Rise of Shadows (7 page)

“Positive lock!” called out Phoenix as Flame was turning on the third grouping of targets. “Incoming missiles, brace for impact!”

In an almost humorous twist of timing, just as those missiles hit our shields, our second wave of missiles hit their targets, eliminating two more of the enemy, leaving only half of them left to fight. I felt the waves of power from the neutronion warheads on their light missiles buffet our ship, but our shields held.

“Come about, new targets gamma, ta, and epsilon will be delta group,” I ordered. If they could shoot back then they needed to go, and fast.

“On it!” called out Dusty. “Delta group lock. Flame, come about on attack vector.”

The powerful engines of the Dust Dragon banked us hard as Flame over-judged the power the turn needed. She quickly corrected, causing the entire ship to groan under the inertial stress of the maneuver, but managed to get us safely and quickly on the correct attack vector.

Spectra was working hard to reestablish the jamming field as Phoenix diverted power and cycled the phasing on the shields in preparation for another hit. It was not long before Dusty had eliminated delta group, and we were moving on to the last three.

“Spectra, as before let them get a call out, and rebroadcast my message from the last fight. Dusty, do not wait on the message; eliminate them. I am sure they will get enough out to be effective before we can finish them off.”

“On it!” called out Dusty as he locked and eliminated the last of the enemy targets.

“Flame, get us out of here. Best speed to the next jump point,” I said. “Congratulations, everyone, that was very well done! They underestimated our abilities because we did not yet show them all we could do, but next time we meet them they will likely bring much more power to play. For now, I want everyone to take a short rest cycle.”

With only a few hours to the jump point, the period of rest would have to be brief, but everyone needed it. They did well in that fight, but it was not as polished as it could be. They were starting to feel the impact of the stress and emotional rollercoaster that real combat puts you through. Eventually they would learn to stay more equable in a fight, and because of that recover faster and make fewer mistakes, but that takes time.

“Flame, do not jump just yet. Spectra, please report our battles to the Aleeryon Navy and see if there are any updated reports.” Spectra turned without a word and sent the message.

“Shadow, they want to talk with you,” she said after a minute.

“I expected that; put them on the main screen, please,” I said. Once the connection was made I said, “This is Battle Wizard First Rank Shadow Weaver of Alpha Academy. How may I help you?”

Much to my surprise, Flame’s brother Bill appeared on the screen. “This is Rear Admiral Bill MacGregor of the Aleeryon Defense Force.” There was a pause, and then he continued with a slight grin, “It’s good to see you again, Shadow.”

“Greetings, Bill. Apparently congratulations are in order, Admiral,” I said.

“Yeah, we can talk more about that when you arrive. I have received reports of your first stops on your way here and wanted to warn you in person. We are getting reports of battleships converging on your next jump exit.”

“I expected as much,” I said.

“Based on the reports, I take it you are alone, so I have to ask: do you think you can handle multiple battleships?” he asked.

“Our ship versus theirs? Absolutely not. My assumption is that my message got out, and they are going to try to squash us as a response.”

“That would be my guess, as well, so what is your plan?” he asked.

“Oh, I plan to cheat, do not worry. The big question I have outstanding is the jump exit after that: is it within your reach?”

“Yes, I can have a wing waiting for you if you like,”

“Please do. Depending on how things go we might not be up for another fight for a bit.”

“Shadow, do not take any foolish risks. You can jump around this by hopping over to the Scaladian route and crossing back over to Aleeryon.”

“Bill, I appreciate your concern, but I have a crew to train and a message to send. I will look for you at the jump exit. Until then, Alpha Academy out,” I said and then gestured to Spectra to cut the channel. “Okay, crew, if we were mundanes the next jump would be hopeless. But we are not, and we have full authorization to use everything at our disposal to accomplish this mission. When we exit this jump, Dusty, make sure we are not seen. Flame, after Dusty uses his power to make us gone, change course radically and approach one of the battleships. They are likely to fire upon our last known position and course. I need you to make sure we are not there to be shot. Once we can see the battlefield I will determine our next steps; everyone clear? Good, then engage the jump drives and let’s go.”

I felt the massive power surge of the jump drives coming online, and soon we were in that ethereal realm called jump space. I wondered briefly if I was being foolish like Bill suggested, but there was no way I could back down from this direct challenge. If I did not meet it and show them how powerless they were before us, they would take it as a sign of weakness and possibly an open door to attack our home.

As we exited jump space I saw four battleships and a myriad of smaller attack ships. They were fanning out around our exit point as Dusty chanted his spell and we vanished. Flame quickly turned us harshly towards the lead battleship and throttled up our engines. I could sense Dusty was struggling to hide that much power. Our tactical displays lit up like crazy as the enemy laid down a blanket of fire over our last position. Flame kept us clear of their attacks and brought us around the starboard side of the battleship. Once we were clear of the fire, Flame throttled us back to give Dusty some reprieve.

“Excellent work, Flame. Spectra, if I recall right, you have learned the gate spell, is that so?” I asked.

“Yes, Shadow,” she said.

As an apprentice with the dimensional power line she could open a gate to travel short distances inside our realm. As she increased in rank, she would be able to gate further distances. Once she reached elite level she could open a gate over unlimited distances, eventually even between realms, but for now she should be able to reach the distance we needed so long as we kept the Dust Dragon relatively close to the
battlefield. That would make the timing difficult because, if my plan worked, the battleship would explode and destroy everything nearby. Flame would have to stay close enough to the battleship so that Spectra could gate us out if we hit trouble, but get us clear of the explosion if we were successful. These objectives for Flame were mutually exclusive, as the range of the blast would easily be greater than Spectra’s gate range.

“Okay then, here is what we are going to do. That battleship that Flame selected is going to be our example. We will destroy it and then leave without them ever getting a shot on us. There are far too many of them for us to take alone, but they do not need to know that. The plan is to make it look like we are so powerful that we just ignored them. Flame, come to zero relative to the command tower on that battleship,” I said.

Flame carefully and slowly brought us in. Meanwhile, the pirates were expanding their field of fire greatly, hoping to get lucky and draw us out. Tensions must be getting high by now over there. They could never guess my plan and would never look for us here.

“Spectra, keep a tab on Phoenix and me. Dusty, you are doing very well. Keep us completely undetectable. Flame, get ready to pull us away, but for now keep the ship in its lowest possible power mode to help Dusty as much as you can. Phoenix, you and I are going on a little tour of their engine room,” I said. A look of great surprise passed over their faces when they realized what I was planning.

Phoenix grabbed his staff, took a deep breath, and said, “Ready.”

“Be on guard, everyone. Once we move we will have to move very fast. It would not do to get blown up with the battleship,” I said.

Once everyone was ready I walked over to Phoenix who said, “Let’s do this!” He had come a long way from the man that I had taken into battle during Operation Foolish Hero, but I could see in his face that he was still unsure of himself.

I traced out a doorway into jump space, and we walked into the vast sea of blue. The engine room of the battleship leaked massive amounts of power, making finding it a trivial task. As we stepped into the engine room, the crew of the battleship jumped with fear and surprise. They grabbed for weapons as Phoenix caused fire to rain down around the room. I quickly turned on the engines and used my power to unweave the powerful curtains of energy that contained their power. I then used the power I had gathered in unweaving the curtains to weave an energy feedback loop, causing the multiple drives to dump massive amounts of power into each other. Soon the drives would reach a critical level, and without the retaining curtains to stop the reaction, they would explode and take out anything nearby. Alarms were going off everywhere around us as the ship’s computers figured out what was about to happen. I sent, “
Phoenix, when we exit I need you to lay down a ton of firepower to give me a few moments to do my part.
”

“
Understood, one home-cooking barbeque on tap for you
,” he sent back.

“
Then it is time to go. Start your barbeque,
” I sent as I opened a new door to jump space while he sprayed fire from his fingertips.

Phoenix threw one last great fireball into the room and then ran through the door. “
Flame, best speed, get us clear now!
” I sent to Flame just before diving through it to jump space myself. Once in there I quickly located Phoenix and then sent out to Spectra, “
Spectra, I need a sign.”
Both spellweavers and those with the dimensional line could move in and out of jump space at will. The only real problem was finding the way back once you were there. This typically meant that you only entered jump space if you had an exit already prepared. We did not, but I was counting on Spectra to be able to provide that marker for us, which she did, and we were able to exit right onto the bridge of the Dust Dragon.

A quick look at the tactical showed me our plan was a great success. We were pulling away from a massive explosion that not only took out the battleship, but several ships nearby.

“Flame, once we are safe, throttle all the way back,” I said as I saw Dusty near collapse from the effort of keeping us undetectable while Flame piloted us away from the pirates at high speed. Spectra saw what was going on and moved to lend Dusty her energy. After we had gotten far enough out, Flame cut off the powerful engines, and most of our screens went blank as we entered low power mode. Being mostly drained from our attack on the battleship, I reached out and drew some of our ship’s power into myself so that I could see beyond the ship that was now mostly blind by virtue of being in low power mode. The pirates were frantically looking for us while pulling tighter together. It was clear they had no idea of our location.

“Dusty, you can get some rest. I still have enough power to keep us hidden while in low power mode. Flame, Spectra, I am depending on you two to get us safely to our next jump point. Phoenix, go and rest also.”

We would have at least six hours at cruising speed to the jump exit, but I dared not go that fast right now. The faster we traveled the harder it would be to hold the cloak and the more likely that we would be spotted. “Flame, keep our max speed at thirty percent for now and everything else as minimal as you can safely manage.”

The next day passed painfully slowly. I had my crew rotate through rest and meal breaks until we reached our jump point, while Dusty and I took turns keeping the Dust Dragon completely cloaked. The pirates continued to look for us, but for some reason they did not follow the route to the next jump. Instead they seemed to assume we would cross over to the Scaladian route and slowly got further and further from us. The plan worked perfectly. We had appeared out of nowhere, destroyed a battleship, and left.

Once we were ready, Dusty and I worked together to keep us hidden while Flame engaged the jump drive. I did not want the pirates to know when we left or where we were headed. We could only stay hidden until we jumped, as jumping into the ethereal realm of jump space broke our cloaking spell. As we exited jump space, we came out into a field of ships. There must have been three dozen different ships of all sizes, mainly comprising cruisers and other fast attack ships.

“Shadow, it’s the Aleeryon Navy,” commented Spectra.

“Excellent, see if you can raise someone on the comm,” I said.

Spectra was able to get someone fairly quickly up on the main screen. He appeared and said, “Hello, Alpha Academy. I am Commander Jackson of the Third Aleeryon Naval Wing.”

“Greetings, Commander, this is Battle Wizard First Rank Shadow Weaver of Alpha Academy,” I said. “It seems that our friends with the battleships did not follow us through the jump.”

“Yes, it does appear that way. What a shame, I was looking forward to meeting them,” he responded.

“Spectra, please send a report of that last fight to the navy, but leave out how we destroyed the battleship,”
I sent.

“Yes, Shadow,”
sent Spectra.

“Commander, you should be getting our report shortly, but it looks like they were heading for the Scaladian route, probably assuming that is where we were going,” I said.

“Sir, how long ago did they jump?” the commander asked.

“They had not yet jumped when we left, but they were heading in that direction,” I said.

“Excellent, then we have a good chance of catching them on the other side. Sir, we would be greatly honored if Alpha Academy would join us,” he said.

Something was not right here; he did not have enough firepower to go after that fleet, unless something was hidden. I stretched out my awareness and looked across space, and slowly I could see tiny points of power spread out all over the area: stealth bombers, and lots of them! A force like this would easily decimate the pirate fleet that we left behind. It seems that we might have underestimated the Aleeryon Navy’s forces, if they could gather this much firepower.