Book of the Guardian 3: The Last Mission (6 page)

"Why is that, Jed?" Mark asked.

"According to the Captain's log, several of those warships immediately jumped to intercept them. Even though they were almost three light years away, that monstrosity detected the trader ships, and sent the warships after them. Later on, in his logs, the Captain reports the arrival of the warships. They questioned the Captains over the comms, and shortly after receiving a signal from that facility, they dropped back into attack position and fired on them," the man answered. "Our ships jumped away, and the Tammerain responded by sending an entire fleet after them. They hunted them for the next six months, destroying three of the five ships. Whatever this is, the Tammerain do not want us to know about it."

As they stood there talking, John noticed something happening out in the main room. Suddenly, the lights took on a red hue. "Red alert!" the intercoms broadcast. "Red Alert, the Tammerain is attacking the Kingdom. All personnel to war status. This is not a drill."

Minister Gadfries opened a channel via the terminal he had been using. "This is Gadfries, report!"

"Minister, a Tammerain fleet has arrived in the Haven system! Reports are of two battleships, four carriers, six frigates, and escorts, they are approaching the farming world of Haven in battle formation," a man replied.

"Keep us apprised!" Mark ordered and moved to another terminal. "Minister, can I get Ms. Halstead in here?"

Gadfries nodded and made the arrangements, in less than a minute there was a polite knock followed by the entry of a plump, dark-skinned woman that wore glasses and a very flamboyant dress. "You called for me, Minister?"

"Actually, I did, Gabby. I need your magic," Mark replied. "Please?" he asked and indicated the chair in front of a terminal.

She grinned. "I knew you couldn't live without me!" she said and quickly took the seat. "Whatcha need first, Your Handsomeness?"

"Current fleet distribution for this sector, local force readiness, and border status with the Tammerain, if you please, Gabby," Mark replied.

John stood close to the Minister and asked in a low voice. "Who's she?"

"His Highness's personal analyst-slash-computer specialist-slash-hacker-slash-computerized magic worker. She's one of the best code breakers we have. But her skills really shine in data acquisition and collation," Gadfries replied just as quietly. "Whenever he works from here, she's the one running his computers."

Mark turned around. "I'm sorry about your dinner reservations, John, but I need you out there. I'll order the Destroyer
Hades
to pick you up in orbit. Jump immediately for Haven," Mark ordered. "I'll brief you on the rest in transit."

John kissed Chloe, and she winked at him. "You still owe me dinner. Hurry back."

"You're going with him, just on a different ship. The destroyer
Clandestine
will be for you," Mark replied. "I'll find something for Carl and Alice and get them out there as well."

John activated his comm. "Carl, Alice! Put your clothes back on and grab your gear. The balloon's going up. Where are you so we can pick you up?"

"Fuck! John how do you know when to call? I was just about to there and you called
again
!" Alice bitched.

"Officer’s quarters, Palace Marine barracks, Boss. Don't worry about Alice, she's just getting a mad worked up to take out on the Tammerain," Carl replied.

"Damn straight! How dare those assholes interrupt my sex time!" Alice replied.

"No need to dress, we're looking at a four hour transit." John replied.

"Four hours? How the fuck did they get so close?" Carl asked.

"Obtuse angle," Alice replied. "They didn't come through the border space. We have no way to detect that."

"Be ready in five, kids, Chloe and I are in route," John replied.

"What about Will?" Carl asked.

"Mark didn't say anything, but I'll handle that, now scoot," John ordered. 

John turned to Mark. "Sire, I'd like you to order Will to your flag ship. We can't leave him out of this."

"Actually, I've got a better job for him. Go get the rest of your dilettantes and get out of here," Mark replied. "Good hunting Guardian."

"Die well, Sire." John returned the parting phrase as he and Chloe ran back the way they'd come. "And take as many of those fuckers with you as you can!" Chloe shot back over her shoulder.

––––––––

T
rue to his word, Mark did indeed have a better place to assign Will. The tired Guardian was now in the planetary defense control center advising operations for the defense of the Capitol and Centauri system.

The shuttle dropped John off at his ship before continuing on to drop the rest at other small ships detached from the planetary defense fleet. John was met by the XO and another officer. "Captains compliments, Lord Guardian, he apologizes for not meeting you himself, but he wanted to make sure we got underway as soon as your shuttle left the bay."

John nodded. "I agree with him, we really don't have time for niceties. Lead on Commander."

The man nodded and turned. He hurriedly introduced his companion. The small woman seemed to be slightly in awe of John. "Sir, this is our chief engineer, Lieutenant Dupree. Lieutenant, Guardian-General John Aster."

"It's a pleasure Chief," John replied.

"Very much so, Sir. It's an honor to meet you," the Lieutenant replied. "Sir, the Captain wanted me to fill you in on the new additions to the destroyer class."

John raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "New Additions?"

"We're fresh out of Xanadu Sir. This is an entirely new ship design, we have a couple extra weapons, and what we have is much more powerful than the old class. We have some stealth systems to prevent missile lock, as well as a new form of reactive armor. Energy weapons hits will make our armor and shields stronger up to a point. We have mass drivers and small lasers for point defense, an anti-missile missile pod mounted between our engines aft, two additional heavy pulse cannons, and an entirely new gadget called a hyperspace disruptor," the woman said, obviously proud of her new ship.

John nodded, "I followed you up until that last item, Chief. What's a hyperspace disruptor?"

"A nasty trap for enemy ships." She replied. "When activated, the disruptor prevents any ship within ten light seconds from jumping into hyperspace."

"That could go either way, Chief. I understand the use, but we'll have to be careful with it. How long does it take to activate and deactivate?"

"The effect is light speed, Sir. So, about four seconds. The device itself is a switch flip," she explained.

John nodded. "With the new weapons, that should almost put you on par with a Tammerain light cruiser. I'm sure she'll do great, Chief. Thanks for the answers."

Destroyer class ships simply aren't that big, so by the time they had finished talking, they had arrived at the bridge. The Chief excused herself to return to Engineering. "Attention!" the XO called as John followed him onto the small bridge.

"As you were," John replied and approached the smiling Captain. The woman was actually the same rank as her XO, but since she was the person in charge of the ship, she held the title of Captain.

"Welcome to the
Hades
, Guardian-General. I'm Commander Dione Stilts, Captain," she said and offered her hand.

John shook her hand nodded his head. "Good to meet you, Captain. What's our status?"

"Course out of the system is set, and the jump to Haven is laid in. We're just waiting for our sister ships, and we'll be on our way," Dione replied. "Can you tell us what's going on, General?"

"Sure, a Tammerain task force just dropped out of hyper at Haven, and we're going to go kick their asses," John said with a slight smile.

"Four Destroyers against a task force?" the woman asked.

"Well, you have four Guardians too," John replied grinning.

"More than enough then!" the XO replied laughing, which caused the Captain to laugh as well.

"John? You on the Hades yet?" Mark called.

"Excuse me a moment, Captain," John said and put his hand to his ear to let everyone know that he was on the Comm.

"Yes I am Mark, but I don't think the others are ready yet." John replied.

"Won't matter very much, have Captain Stilts head out, I need you there ASAP. Those fuckers are twenty minutes from orbit of Haven," Mark said.

Turning back to the Captain, John said. "Captain, head out now. We can't wait for the others. Fast as possible if you please."

The woman nodded to him and turned back to her bridge crew and started giving orders. The XO pointed John to a chair with straps, as he took his own station.

John sat down and strapped in. "We're on our way, care to tell me what kind of help we're going to have? This seems like a good crew, and I don't want to lose them."

"I've managed to redirect the Fourth Russian Task force to Haven for you. They should arrive within ten minutes of you. They'll be coming in on the far side of the system from you. However, they are equipped with the new missiles. Feel free to terrify the enemy all you want. Uh, John..." Mark said.

"Yeah?" John asked.

"They have violated our space. None of them leave. Understand?"

John sighed. "Yes Sire. None will."

"Thanks, keep me in the loop. Contact Commodore Rostov for the missiles," Mark replied.

"Mark, who named the fleet? There hasn't been a 'Russia' in five thousand years," John asked.

"Heh, I did, actually. I named them all after different countries from old earth."

John chuckled. "So what is the name of the Capitol guardian fleet?"

"The First North American Guards, or first NAG for short. I thought it would be fitting considering they'll tell me when to get the hell off the planet," Mark replied.

John laughed at the name. "It's a good name. I need to go calm the Captain a little, I told her we were going to kick ass on a task force, and she paled a little. I'm going to talk to her and see what she thinks of my strategy."

"What is your strategy?" Mark asked.

"Muerte invisible" John replied in an old Earth language. "Invisible Death,"

He could hear the grin in Mark's reply. "I get it! Sounds like a good plan to me, just try to keep them from attacking that planet."

"Well, if they do try to hail the planet, make sure it gets piped through to me. Maybe I can keep them talking until we get there," John said.

"Okay, go talk to the Captain so she doesn't get her knickers in a knot. I'm sure she'll love your idea!" Mark said as he closed the connection.

John looked over at the Captain. "Captain, do we have time for a talk?"

––––––––

J
ohn had time during the trip to brief the other guardians as well as put in a call to the Commodore. Everything was in place to give the Tammerain fleet a warm reception to the Kingdom. The fleet itself didn't try to contact anyone, they settled into orbit of the planet, and began intensive scans of the surface, it was very obvious they were looking for something.

Twenty minutes from arrival, the being in charge of the fleet finally hailed the nervous colony. As per their instructions, they set up a subspace link to route the call to John.

After making sure there was nothing behind him to betray his location, John opened the channel, and bowed. "Greetings Fleet Commander, you are orbiting a planet that is mine to defend. I seek knowledge of your intentions?"

The large being just sat for a moment and stared at John. Finally it spoke. "I am Fleet Commander H'drean. We have tracked a group of Kingdom spies and terrorists to this system. We seek knowledge as to their current location."

"Fleet Commander H'drean, two solar cycles ago, two freighters arrived in this system. Both crews had expired due to dehydration, and the computer systems of the ships had been destroyed by what looked like battle damage. As for any spies aboard either ship, I'm afraid you know more about that than I do," John replied.

"Come now, Demon, you know as well as I do that those supposed trading ships are little more than spy vessels sent to deceive the faithful. These ships you claim to have been destroyed, where is their current location so we may verify their status ourselves?" H'drean asked.

"They were taken away, we do not know by whom. I assume they were taken to be analyzed as to because of the battle damage, so we could discover who murdered them," John replied.

"Murdered is not the word used for the termination of spies, Demon. You will learn this soon enough. You will provide us with the location of the ships or we will destroy this colony. No more games will be played with you," H'drean replied.

"Fleet Commander H'drean, I feel I have to point out a few things to you, since you have overlooked them. First, you are orbiting a world in Kingdom Space, not Imperial. This world is not yours to destroy. Second, if so much as one child on that planet is harmed by your presence here, I will not allow any of your ships to return to your own space. Third, again you are not in the Empire, you are in the Kingdom, you are surrounded by forces that will destroy you utterly if you do not surrender immediately.

"Lastly, the planet you are threatening is unarmed, and has no defenses. By your own imperial law, as well as the laws of your Goddess, this would be an act of terrorism thus resulting in the same punishment you wish to inflict upon those already beyond this world. Such an act, in itself has been condemned by your own Goddess as well as the Jal-Haraad. You would destroy your own soul and the souls of those that follow you for no gain?" John replied.

They were five minutes out now, he had to buy enough time to get in range of the fleet so they could target them.

The large being narrowed his eyes and glared at John. "You will not use your demon tricks on us! We are defended from the likes of you. Our Goddess has directed us to destroy the spies at any cost, and we will not be denied. She will not allow our souls to be forfeit if we must destroy this world, since it is not us that does this but you that forced our hand."