Rise of the Altered Moon: Altered Moon Series: Book One (The Altered Moon Series 1) (29 page)

“Cat, get ready for a Moonshine,” CJ ordered. “Cal, stand by with a goose in the rear tube. Gina, give me a hard backward loop and bring us in right over the top of them. Ready…Now!”

Gina brought the
Altered Moon
up in a hard pitch to end up in the opposite direction and just above the rapidly advancing ship. The Predator’s bright green plasma beams and the
Altered Moon
’s cobalt blue energy bolts gleamed brighter than the stars themselves against the velvet black as the two ships fired cannons on each other.

“Cat, now!” CJ called out as the distance closed.

The
Altered Moon
emitted a sensor burst overload that jammed any sensor or visual scanners and caused a loss of all targeting or navigational readouts. The weapons fire from the Predator stopped hitting the
Moon
and began to shoot off in random directions as they lost target lock.

“Cal, fire the EMP,” CJ called out.

“Aye, Cap, goose away.”

The electromagnetic pulse discharged by the missile shorted out the electrical systems of the MT&T security ship, an effective but temporary maneuver.

“Gina, top speed to the rendezvous,” CJ said. “Let’s get out of here before they can recover.”

“Aye, sir, on the way.” She didn’t even dare to hope they were out of the woods yet.

CJ poked the S2S icon. “Boss, we are on the way. Prep for a Boss nine.”

“Roger that, we are in position and standing by.”

The
Altered Moon
raced toward
Moonshadow
in a straight course shot.
Moonshadow
matched
Altered Moon’
s course, as the
Moon
matched the shuttle’s velocity. The two ships converged on one another, as Cat opened the shuttle bay doors from the bridge console. Now was the tricky part: Boss brought
Moonshadow
in over the
Altered Moon
as Gina pitched the
Altered Moon
up in a graceful loop that formed the pattern of the number nine.
Moonshadow
merged into the shuttle bay with a slightly less-than-gentle landing. But, you know what they say about landings…any one that you can walk away from is a good one. The shuttle and all hands were back on board. Gina gunned the engines to leave the area as fast as possible.

“What’s the position of the MT&T ship?” asked CJ as they got under way.

“One forty-three by thirty-two,” Cat replied. “I’m reading building power signatures. They’ve brought up their auxiliary systems.”

“Gina, come to—” CJ started to say as a Kang warship jumped into space dead ahead of them and opened fire. There was no time to react. “Evasive!” CJ yelled out.

Gina brought every star pilot skill she could muster to full on, as she dodged the cannon fire of the Kang vessel. CJ barked out the orders and Gina flew like hell. They worked in unison to identify and evade the major threats of the Kang attack patterns.

Gina had weaved the
Altered Moon
through most of the weapons barrage and they were at the edge of the Kang’s weapons range when two of the blasts found their mark in the aft shielding generator. The power of the Kang cannon fire was incredible. The image of captured Keect’na being used as living amplifiers in the Kang weapon chambers flashed through CJ’s mind. The power of the blast blew clean through the shields and destroyed the shield generator.

“That’s a hull breach,” Boss yelled, as he stumbled onto the bridge, still in the suspensor frame.

CJ looked over at Boss for the briefest of seconds with a single question in his eye.

“She’s okay,” Boss said. “She went to engineering.”

The next shot tore through the engine housing, destroyed three of the secondary ISEs, and disabled the primary. The
Altered Moon
shook and shuddered as alarms of various natures went off simultaneously. A violent shockwave moved through the ship, which disrupted power and overloaded circuits.

“GABI?” CJ hollered out.

“Online, Captain.”

“GABI, jump the ship! Now!” CJ yelled.

“I am unable to do so, Captain,” she replied. “The jump engine has been damaged.”

“Captain!” Katy called over the comms. “Hull breach in engineering. The emergency bulkheads are in place, but the bay is depressurized.”

“Katy, come up to the bridge,” CJ called into the comms, then said to Boss, “What do we have left?”

“Nine secondary engines, forward missile tubes and cannons,” Boss reported to him. “Shields are down and critical power systems are at forty two percent.”

“Shit. Bring us about. Ready all weapons.”

The image on the main view screen shifted as the
Altered Moon
came about to face her enemy one on one, when the sensors picked up three more ships jumping into the system.

“What…they need more ships to finish us off?” CJ said, as the last hope of escaping alive was dashed to pieces.

“Captain, they’re Blood Stars,” Boss read excitedly off the sensor readout. “Two Blood Star ships and one unidentified, but I’ll lay odds by its design that she’s a Keect’na ship.”

Katy stepped onto the bridge just in time to watch with the others as the three newcomers engaged the Kang warship. The two Blood Star ships launched six deadboy missiles that screamed toward the Kang ship with jets of bright red behind them. The eerie green translucent ship that came with them launched two missiles wrapped in an envelope of purple just as the six Blood Star missiles tore into the side of the Kang warship.

The molecular decay warheads inside the ‘Deadboy’ missiles dissolved the molecular bond of whatever matter existed within their blast radius. The missiles that exploded on the Kang ship were already doing their dirty work on the ship’s hull plating. The molecular decay was well underway when the two dark matter missiles detonated inside the deadboy missiles’ blast radius. The dark matter missiles’ energy fused with that of the decaying hull molecules, resulting in two massive explosions that blew off the entire side of the Kang warship.

The Kang vessel continued to explode here and there as the three ships turned to an intercept course with the
Altered Moon
. A hail came over the comms as the ships drew nearer.

“Grreeetinngss, SeeShay,” hailed a beautiful singsong voice over the comms.

“It’s Crissi!” Gina exclaimed.

“Crissieal!” CJ answered her hail. “What a pleasant surprise. Your timing could not have been better.”

“Auvv caurrsse,” she replied matter of factly. “Crissi alaays onn tinne.”

The crew on the bridge of the
Altered Moon
broke out in a well needed bought of laughter at their friend’s manner.

“I see you’ve brought friends,” CJ said. “Care to make introductions?”

“Oh, we’ve met before, Captain Evermore,” said the commander of one of the Blood Star ships. “My ship still bears the scar of our previous encounter.”

The view screen split into two as the image of a stern-faced woman in a black uniform decorated with several medals and pins and looped with a silver braid at the left shoulder appeared on the screen. The woman’s skin was only a shade or two brighter than the black uniform she wore. Glossy black hair was pulled back tightly with the braided length of it hanging over her right shoulder down to her bosom.

“I seem to remember more than a few missiles heading in my direction as well, Captain…?” CJ replied and waited for a name.

“Kendra Varrin, Commander of the
Scythe
,” she introduced herself.

“Well, Commander Varrin, I owe you a drink for coming to our assistance today,” CJ responded politely.

“I think you owe me more than that, Captain. But that’s a matter for another time. We should leave this area immediately.”

Murphy’s Law was a constant in the universe and it was in full effect today. No sooner had the commander made her statement about leaving, when two Kang warships slipped into normal space. Four more jumped in behind the first two, then four more after that. Finally a Kang armada of fifteen ships emerged through the quantum field to face the four ships that dared to attack their brethren. Obliteration was imminent.

“Stay behind us, Captain,” Commander Varrin told CJ, “and cover our flank as best you can. We’ll defend you as long as we can.”

“Commander…Kendra…good hunting,” CJ said respectfully.

“And to you as well…Crucible,” Kendra replied with a light laugh as her image faded away.

“Damn…does everybody know?” CJ wondered out loud as he looked around. The whole crew seemed remarkably busy at the moment. “Crissi,” he turned back to the view screen, “I speak for the crew when I say that we are honored to have met you and thank you for coming for us. I wish there was more time to get to know you.”

“Lonngg tinne yet, SeeShay,” she said simply. “Gud luck, frienndss.” Crissi hummed and glowed which was a soft smile in the manner of the Keect’na as her image on the view screen was replaced with an image of the intimidatingly large number of Kang warships that loomed before them.

The small fleet of four ships spread out slightly to make the Kang at least work for their victory. The shimmer of the other ships’ shields glaringly reminded CJ of their own lack of primary shielding. They weren’t going to last long in this fight. He was suddenly aware of Katy at his side. He squeezed her hand and held her eyes for a moment. He swallowed hard and turned back to the view screen to watch as the Kang armada advanced to weapons’ range.

Just as the Kang warships opened fire on the
Altered Moon
and her allies, an eruption of cannon fire and missiles engulfed two of their rearguard ships. The two ships were crippled instantly and one suffered a critical hit to its reactor core. The ship broke up as a fireball blasted through its hull from the inside of the ship. Six of the smaller ships were destroyed within minutes as the full strength of a fleet of Marlacuer Imperial Star Guard battle cruisers came to bear on the Kang armada’s rear flank.

The Kang turned their attention from the
Altered Moon
’s group of ships to focus on the greater danger of the Marlacuer battle fleet. The attempt was fruitless, as the Imperial battle cruisers easily crushed the Kang armada; they destroyed or disabled every Kang vessel. The battle lasted no more than a quarter of an hour. The space around the battle was packed with Imperial vessels of all kinds within a short time; all of them went about their Imperial business of gathering up every scrap of Kang warriors, ships, and equipment that could be found.

Crissiael and the Blood Stars remained in defensive positions around the
Altered Moon
until a small group of frigates broke off with one cruiser to approach the four
ships. The frigates took up positions surrounding them and a single cruiser sat off their forward port quarter.

“Unidentified vessels, this is the ISG Cruiser
Navare
. You are ordered to stand down and submit to an Imperial boarding squad or we will destroy you,” the command came over the comms of all four ships. The firepower of the Star Guard ships, which had just been clearly demonstrated, left no doubt about the authority of the order to stand down.

“ISG
Navare
, this is CJ Evermore, Captain of the
Altered Moon
,” CJ hailed the Imperial cruiser. There was no response to their hail; in fact, there was no further communication of any kind from the
Navare,
nor from any of the Imperial guardsmen who boarded and took up positions on the bridges of every ship. The minutes passed to hours as the Imperial guard kept the ships locked out and the crews confined to quarters and the command officers to the bridges.

After several hours, the long-range scanner indicated a huge vessel on an approach vector. The single mass separated as it got closer into the biggest flotilla of Marlacuer royal vessels that any of them had ever seen. A massive ship of splendid colors and ornate hull plating was surrounded with fleets of battle cruiser groups, all bristled with weapons arrays and missile batteries. A thousand utility ships and courier shuttles flew in and around the unbelievably huge flotilla. This was why they were being detained. Marlacuer Emperor Zartharian the Omnipotent had arrived.

The ranking officer of each boarding squad received orders to bring the commanding officer of each vessel to the command ship of the Black Sash, which was the personal guard of the Emperor and the Royal Family. The boarding squad on the
Altered Moon
took CJ and left the ship without so much as ‘you’ll be contacted.’ Katy managed to kiss CJ for a second before the squad members pulled her away. He struggled to look back at the crew as the Imperial guards hauled him off the bridge.

“Katy I love you,” he yelled back before the bridge hatch slammed shut and he was gone.

Gina and Cat both came over to comfort Katy as she slumped over a console.

“No! Not again.” Katy stood up like a shot, ran to a comms panel, and just about put her cybernetic fist through the S2S icon. “You Imperial son of a bitch! You let him go!” she screamed into the comms. “He’s a good man! You let him go! You son of a bi—,” Katy slowly lost consciousness as the sedative that Cat slipped her took effect.