The Lost Fleet: Genesis: A Slaver Wars Novel (28 page)

“I’m sorry,
Kelnor,” Brenda said, standing next to the campfire by the esteemed Alton research scientist. “We’ve searched every nook and cranny, and we can’t find any way
into the part of the museum Reesa vanished into.”

Kelnor gazed
deeply into the fire, seeing the red and yellow colors of the flames. “She was
always so impulsive. All she ever talked about was her research into the
Originators. It’s only fitting her life ended here on the Dyson Sphere.”

“Sergeant!”
said Corporal Metz, pointing up into the sky and toward the city.

Brenda turned
around and her eyes grew wide. A large aircraft or small spaceship was coming
toward them. “I think I spoke too soon about Reesa being lost.” She watched as
the craft landed a short distance away and a hatch slid open. The Marines
around her gripped their assault rifles, ready to defend themselves if necessary.
“Everyone hold your fire. I don’t want anyone getting jumpy no matter what
comes out of that hatch.”

“Hold your
fire!” ordered Corporal Metz. “It could be Reesa coming out.”

A figure
appeared and stepped through the opening. Brenda felt her breath catch in her
throat. It was a man and he was easily eight feet tall. Feeling disappointed,
she didn’t see any sign of Reesa.

“It’s an
Originator,” said Kelnor in amazement. “Some of them survived!”

The man calmly
walked over to where the exploratory team was now gathered. No one spoke; even
the Marines appeared to be nervous. The man resembled the Altons in skin color,
but his hair was a deep golden blond.

“I’m Tamon, an
AI of the race you call the Originators.”

“An AI,” said
Kelnor in dawning realization. “Why have you come?”

The AI slowly
looked around the assembled group. “A situation has developed that may require
your assistance. Reesa Jast told us you would cooperate.”

“Reesa!”
echoed Kelnor, his eyes lighting up. “Then she’s alive?”

“Yes, she’s
waiting back at one of our Control Centers. Once we arrive there everything
will be explained.”

“What’s
happening, can you at least tell us that?” asked Brenda not wanting to walk
into a completely unknown situation.

“It’s the
Simulins,” Tamon replied. “There is a remote possibility the Simulins will gain
access to the Shrieel, or Dyson Sphere as you call it. If they do, we may need
your Marines to drive them out.”

“Simulins,”
said Corporal Metz, gripping his rifle tighter.

“We’ll come,”
Brenda said without hesitation. She knew under no circumstances could she allow
the Simulins to take control of the Dyson Sphere though she wasn’t certain what
her twenty-five Marines could do to stop them.

-

Simulins are
at one hundred and ten million kilometers from the Dyson Sphere,” reported
Captain Davis. “We’ll be in combat range in four minutes.”

“All ships,
standby to fire,” ordered Admiral Tolsen.

He had the
Simulins heavily outnumbered. Not only that, he had the
WarHawk
and
seventeen other dreadnoughts, forty-four Federation battleships, one hundred
and eighty Alton battleships, one hundred and thirty Alton battlecruisers, plus
nearly four hundred support ships. He was fully confident he could destroy the
Simulin fleet. However, he was concerned about the ship losses he might suffer
and what that might mean if the Shari decided to attack. The Simulin fleet
would be no pushover. They would inflict some major losses on his fleet.

On the massive
viewscreen, the image shifted to show a number of Federation and Alton ships in battle formation. Race had formed the fleet up into a massive wall fifty
ships wide and seven ships high with a depth of two. He intended to hit the
Simulin fleet head on and eliminate it as quickly as possible. The battle would
be vicious, but it also should be brief.

-

Lower Lord
Samarth watched the tactical screen waiting for the Humans and Altons to begin
their battle with the Simulins. Only a few moments before he had received a
message from the Human admiral warning once more that setting off the explosive
charges on the Dyson Sphere could have dire consequences. Samarth hadn’t
reported the message to the High Lord.

There was no
doubt in his mind that once the battle was over, the Shari could then attack
and destroy the weakened Human and Alton fleets. Not only that, Abrade was
about to set off the nuclear charges on the Dyson Sphere, which would give them
admittance to the inside of the megastructure. Once within they would have
access to the technology that had built it. Samarth was already contemplating
how to take credit for the strategy, which would lead to the Humans’ and Altons’
destruction as well as Shari access to the Dyson Sphere. He would become a hero
and elevated in rank, perhaps even to the Council of High Lords itself.

-

“Optimum weapons
range,” called out Captain Davis from his sensor console. Simulin fleet is at
ninety-eight million kilometers from the Dyson Sphere.”

“Fire!”
ordered Race over his minicomm connecting him to all the ships in the fleet.

“Launching
antimatter missiles,” reported Major Daniels. “Particle beams and power beams
are firing.”

“All
dreadnoughts, launch defense globes,” ordered Race. “Use their ion beams to
take down the Simulin energy screens.”

“All fleet
units have opened fire,” Commander Arnett reported. “Simulins are responding.”

On the
viewscreen, Race saw a Simulin escort cruiser suddenly blow apart as an
antimatter missile detonated against its hull, destroying it in a fiery
explosion.

Particle beam
fire slammed into the bow of a Simulin battlecruiser, shearing off three of its
energy beam spires. Power beams tore through the battlecruiser’s energy shield,
striking the stern of the vessel and setting off secondary explosions. Moments
later, the ship lost all power and was soon riddled by power beams, turning it
into a drifting wreck.

The
WarHawk
shuddered as several Simulin antimatter missiles exploded against the energy
shield, severely jarring the ship. The massive viewscreen seemed to flicker and
then normalized as the screen returned to full power.

“No damage,”
reported Colonel Cowel. “Energy shield is at 98 percent.”

“All
batteries, continuous fire,” ordered Race, determined to end this as quickly as
possible.

“Vice Admiral
Tolsen is launching her fighters,” confirmed Commander Arnett as hundreds of
small green icons began to appear on one of the other tactical displays.
“Defense globes are being deployed.”

-

In space, the
weapons fire between the opposing fleets rapidly intensified. An Alton battleship suddenly blew apart as several Simulin battlecruisers bracketed it with
their energy beams. A Federation strikecruiser suddenly found itself powerless
as its engine room was destroyed by an energy beam strike. Moments later, a
Simulin antimatter missile turned the warship into glowing plasma. On both sides,
ships died like moths drawn to a flame as the fleets steadily drew nearer to
one another.

-

High Commander
Hark Brasht felt growing anger at the organic ships standing between his fleet
and the Great Sphere.

“There are
eighteen very large vessels in that fleet,” Second Commander Habra reported.
“All of them are much more powerful than our own battlecruisers.”

“We must reach
the Great Sphere with the command key,” grated out Brasht, his eyes narrowing
sharply. “Take command of the fleet; I’ll be going to the sphere in one of our
shuttles. Prepare the Conqueror Drone pods; they are to be launched as well.”

Habra looked
uncertain. “The pods will take too long to reach the Great Sphere.”

“Irrelevant,”
snapped Brasht. “They will serve as decoys. All ships are to launch their
shuttles. I want two Conqueror Drones on each shuttle in case we need them on
the sphere. If I can activate the intergalactic vortex with the command key, we
can summon reinforcements. Once they’re here, we can wipe out all the organic
ships in this system and the Great Sphere will be ours. Once we’ve secured this
system we can begin the conquest of this galaxy.”

“All must be
Simulin,” Habra said devoutly.

“There can
only be Simulin,” Brasht responded as he turned and left the Command Center.

-

“Admiral!”
called out Captain Davis worriedly. “The Simulins are launching hundreds of
small shuttles and what appear to be Conqueror Drone pods. They’re going around
our fleet formation.”

“Massie,” Race
said over the ship-to-ship minicomm. “We have Simulin small craft coming your
way.”

“We see them,
Race,” Massie answered unperturbed. “I’m already directing the Talons to
intercept.”

The big
viewscreen switched to a highly magnified view of a squadron of Talon fighters
accelerating toward the Simulin small craft.

Race was
feeling growing concern. There was no doubt the command key to gain access to
the intergalactic vortexes was on board one of those small ships. The problem
was they had no way of telling which one.

-

Above the
surface of the Dyson Sphere, the Shari scientist Abrade nodded in satisfaction
as the Simulin fleet crossed the one hundred million kilometer mark. “Set off
the first group of charges,” he ordered. “Then the next set after ten seconds.
We will continue to fire warheads into the breach every ten seconds until we
penetrate to the interior of the sphere or I give the order to stop.”

Abrade was on
board a Shari battlecruiser ten thousand kilometers directly above the site on
the Dyson Sphere where the first set of specially shaped charges had been set.
He was certain once these charges penetrated the outer layer of the hull, the
other warheads would be able to finish the job.

“Detonation in
five seconds,” the ship’s Lower Lord reported.

Abrade turned
his attention to the ship’s main viewscreen focused on the Dyson Sphere.

“Detonation.”

On the surface
of the Dyson Sphere, a brilliant flash of light suddenly appeared as ten
specially designed nuclear warheads detonated. From an orbiting battlecruiser,
ten more specially designed missiles flashed down to the surface, delivering
their shaped charges to the target. Then for the next seventy seconds like
clockwork more missiles with normal warheads were sent every ten seconds. A
massive cloud of unleashed nuclear energy was rising above the surface of the
Dyson Sphere.

“Report!”
demanded Abrade as he called the missile launch to a halt.

 He was
anxious to see what effect the explosions were having on the Dyson Sphere and
how far they had penetrated. The battlecruiser had special sensors he had personally
calibrated capable of seeing through the nuclear energy still broiling on the
surface.

“I don’t
understand,” said the Lower Lord in confusion. “The sensors are showing no
damage to the hull. There has been no penetration.”

“Impossible!”
yelled Abrade in disbelief, his eyes shining with anger. “You must be
mistaken!” Could this Lower Lord be so incompetent he couldn’t even read the
sensors properly?

Even as he
spoke, he saw massive hatches begin to slide open on the Dyson Sphere. With a
sickening feeling, he realized the Human admiral had been right. The Dyson
sphere was preparing to defend itself. There could be no other reason for so
many hatches to open simultaneously.

-

From the open
hatches, spheres of blue energy launched themselves into space. Each sphere
targeted one of the one hundred and eighteen Shari warships in close orbit
above the Dyson Sphere. As each sphere struck, the energy shield of the
targeted vessel was drained away, and then the sphere latched onto the ship
itself. The very molecular structure of the ship began to lose cohesion as the
atoms could no longer hold their bonds with one another. This was repeated on
all of the Shari vessels in orbit. In less than forty seconds, all the Shari ships and their crews were turned into drifting dust.

-

“Admiral!”
yelled Captain Davis with fear in his eyes. “The Shari set off their nuclear
charges and the Dyson Sphere has responded.”

Race felt a
cold chill run through him. “The Shari vessels, what’s happening to them?”

“They’re
gone,” Davis said in a stunned voice. “The Dyson Sphere launched some type of
balls of energy, and they obliterated all the Shari vessels. It was over within
seconds!”

“Admiral,”
called out Captain Travers. “I just received a message from Reesa Jast, she
says we have less than two minutes to leave the system or our ships will be
destroyed as well. This is some type of automated defensive system controlled
by the Dyson Sphere’s core computer. It can’t be stopped! She also said for us
never to return.”

“What do we
do?” asked Commander Arnett, shifting her gaze to the admiral.

“All ships,”
Race said over his ship-to-ship minicomm. “Break off contact with the Simulin
fleet and jump immediately to the emergency coordinates. Massie, bring all of
your fighters back. Emergency landings!” Any fighter not on board in ninety
seconds will have to be left. This order is not debatable.”

“Fighters are
being recalled,” Massie replied. “Race, some of them are too far out.”

“I know,” Race
said, feeling a cold knot in the pit of his stomach. “It can’t be helped.”

“Preparing to
jump,” reported Admiral Stoddard.

“All ships
will be jumping within thirty seconds,” added Alton Fleet Admiral Baasil.

“
Corvus
,
how close are you to finishing the evacuation from the battlestations?”

“Last shuttle
is coming on board now,” Commander Smart replied. “We’ll be jumping in forty
seconds. What about the exploration cutter?”

Race’s face
paled. There was no way the cutter could take off in time. “They’ll have to
stay.” Race hope the Originator AIs would let them go once all the hostilities
were over.