Con-Red: Recourse (54 page)

A violet beam of continuous energy fired from the glowing ball of lightning at the bow of the alien looking vessel and slammed into the heavy cruiser.  The beam passed through the shields as if they were only a minor annoyance and sliced into the cruiser’s thick armor.  This protective hide vaporized almost instantly and bubbled at the site of impact before unleashing a web of fracturing to the surrounding area.  It wasn’t long before the leading edge of the knife-like beam penetrated into the ship itself and burned through the underside of the ship’s wing section.  At the same moment it began to move forward, cutting a deep swath within that section of the massive ship.  From that initial cut it seemed to progress at a fast pace, until the entire portion of the ship detached.  Multiple points of internal detonations could be seen inside the assaulted area as the wing floated away.  A number of flailing human beings became visible as they were sucked out from the cruise into space.

Admiral Lin
instructed the image to zoom out just in time to watch the second violet beam strike the vessel.  This one pierced the rear armor and slashed through the ship from port to starboard.  Reports of hull damage and system failures appeared beside the projection, having been compiled the day before from data obtained by the
Federation
.  That surviving ship’s data storage core had been recovered by the
Rostov’s
boarding team and delivered to a special team appointed by the Admiral himself.  Having seen the full video of the battle once before Xwai was no longer surprised when the destructive wave of energy discharged from the cruiser’s rear and ripped the ship apart from the inside. 

He paused the footage and studied the crew manifest floating beside him.  It reminded him that along with that naval asset, most importantly, over one hundred people had perished with it.  For some reason the ship’s destruction brought a feeling of accomplishment and pride to his mind, but seeing the names of all those dead crewmen overpowered those foreign feelings with sadness and regret.  Xwai knew that they had all lost their lives because of the orders he had given.  Over his many years of service he had lost many men and women
under his command, but for some unknown reason this time it felt different.  This time he felt slightly more responsible.

The single miracle of the Frontiera engagement was the survival of the carrier
Federation
.  Along with this ship came a treasure trove of information about the new enemy that the UPF now encountered and was at war with.  This data proved invaluable to the analysts studying it and gave them insight into some of the weapons and tactics employed by the enemy.  Disseminated to the rest of the Federation Military this information might help develop countermeasures that could turn the tide of the war.  Not only that, but the recorded video finally gave some closure as to what had really happened in that system as well as how heroic and professional his naval forces had acted even under such a horrible and unpredictable situation.

Even with so much destruction and death, there was certain discovered evidence that some units might actually have survived.  Xwai reached out and adjusted the view of the holographic projection surrounding him.  Instead of showing the previous detonation the paused image enlarged another part of the surrounding space.  At first there was only the darkness of space, but soon a number of small objects began to appear.  Soon there were many others
and they quickly grew into the shapes of Cyclone interceptors.  Interspersed between these small attack craft were enemy fighters engaged in dogfights.  The Admiral’s aging eyes were able to catch a glimpse of multiple small explosions among these individual fights.

He enabled the video to continue and began to watch these
dart shaped ships exchange fire with alien ‘A’ shaped ones while in turn trying to avoid getting hit themselves.  Three of these enemy fighters turned into fireballs as he watched the footage, but one of the interceptors disappeared as well.  Just observing these fine craft Xwai could tell that something was off about them.  Each one seemed to be moving more sluggish than they normal should.  Even so they still seemed to be holding an edge over the alien fighters in pretty much every aspect.  They were out climbing, out turning, and generally out flying their counterparts.

Suddenly the Federation craft broke off the engagement and accelerated away from the fight towards Frontiera. 
The Cyclone speed was impressive to watch.  None of the enemy craft were able to match their sprint and quickly began to fall further and further behind.  The video quickly jumped to another view, having been cut together previously by the analysis team, and followed the Cyclone squadron’s path as much as possible.  It showed them linking up with a pair of larger dropships.  Together the new formation flew out of frame and disappeared.  The video gave a bit of hope to the admiral that perhaps some members of the task force had survived long enough to land on the planet.

“Play audio file RO Four,”
Admiral Lin requested while pausing the video feed running all around him.

The playback started immediately with C
aptain Alokow’s voice crackling into existence throughout the large office. “All squadrons…, this is Razor Lead…, break off from current engagements,” the carrier group commander ordered in a strained manner as if fighting hard to get the words out, “I repeat break off all engagements…regroup and follow Razor Squadron.  Retreat to Frontera at full power….We need to get groundside.”

“S
trike! They just took out the Olstaburg.  She’s gone, sir,” exclaimed one of the Razor’s pilots.

“We can’t do anything for her any
more Griz.  We need to regroup.”

“
None of the squadrons are responding sir.  They are getting completely wiped out.”

“Ice is right Strike.  They appear to barely be maneuvering
and are getting overwhelmed.”

There was a moment of pause in the recording
until suddenly one of the pilots called out another warning, “new contact at Zero Six One High!  It’s Sierra Two…she just jumped in!”

“Break and Evade!” Captain Alokow commanded.

“Base and Memphis just bought it Razor Lead.”

“Watch those beams!  Regroup in G Two Two.”

“I just got clipped good Strike, don’t think I’ll make it Lead,” another pilot called out rather calmly.

“Eject Helio!” the captain shouted.

“Sir, he just rammed Sierra Two.”

With that transmission the recording ceased.  The display around him indicated that the
Federation
had dropped out of the system at that moment.  Because of this there was no other information available about the UPF military forces remaining in the system.  There was, however, data on some of the enemy ships, thanks to the quick thinking of Commodore Jonstan.  While she had fallen before knowing that her Marker salvo had actually succeeded, the tracking data being transmitted back to the Federation was invaluable to the war effort.  The other thing she could not know was that the
Federation
’s sensors had actually picked up trace amounts of distorted graviton particles, which proved to emanate from around the alien ships themselves.  Each time one of the vessels would move there happened to be an increase in these distinct particles.

Once it was
confirmed that the Markers had been launched and that gravitons were unique to these enemy ships tracking stations throughout UPF space were put on high alert.  It was then that multiple stations at the edges of Federation control began to pick up signals from these scattered tracking systems.  Engineering teams had immediately dispatched to as many of these isolated detection stations as possible and upgraded them with new algorithms for the detection and tracking of specific graviton particles.  It took some doing, but the teams worked hard and within hours the first of these positions began to transmit possible graviton concentrations.

It was also at that time that Subspace Network Relays began to go offline from these areas as well.  These marked ships were jumping into system after system, like they were looking for something, and disabling or destroying any relays they happened to come across.  Perhaps they even knew the location of these transmitters beforehand.  It wasn’t know
n yet if these scouts were single ships or small groups jumping to and from various systems.  Admiral Lin studied the large map projected around him and looked over the different red circled areas that indicated previous enemy locations and possible enemy presences at that very moment.  A good number of these visited systems were in the borderland area surrounding Entech Space, an area completely quarantined since the Crusades.

Xwai had a momentary relapse into years past and reflexively
scowled at the mere sight of the Entech territory on his map display.  He disliked the Enlightened Technologists greatly for what they had done in their ruthless crusade to spread their way of life to the rest of humanity.  The blood of millions was on their hands and to the admiral those hands would never be fully clean.  Since losing the drawn out war the Entechs had repented and gone into a self-forced isolation.  Having sealed their borders almost completely it was close to impossible for Federation intelligence to investigate what was happening inside those systems. 

In reality the Entechs had only been heard from three times since the Crusades.  Each time their representatives had appeared they had caused quite a stir among the intelligence services.  Every time the human beings that had shown up began to look more and more like cyborgs than humans.  Technological grafts and alterations had been detected in pretty much every bodily system within the beings.  Besides these visible additions the representatives
were seen to behave in a robotic and mechanical manner the last time they had made their presence inside the UPF.  Xwai still remembered his shock at hearing that the entirety of the Entech population was now controlled by a single advanced artificial intelligence.  It had been created after the war to take charge of the Entech people in order to ensure that such conflicts never happened again.  The AI system linked every individual together and was also able to suppress any emotion state that threatened to break the euphoric harmony that had now been attained.

This in itself disgusted Xwai most of all.  They had all chosen to become slaves of a machine and were n
ow in no position to disable it should the need arise.  As such his bias prevented him from issuing a warning to them about the alien threat that now loomed over all of humanity.  To him they deserved everything that was coming to them and would have to stand alone.  If it was their fate to get captured or exterminated then so be it.  That was just fine with Admiral Lin Xwai.

At that moment another X icon lit up as the map updated to show that another subspace relay had been disabled.  It caused him to take another look at each of the other nodes that had been taken down recently and with this most recent one a pat
tern actually became visible.  The last relay happened to complete a small circle that looked to be punched out inside the far edge of the Pisces Sector.  Xwai instantly recognized that inside this encircled area was the Rahias Advance Projects Facility.  This floating facility housed some of the brightest minds of the Federation.  Scientists who worked on a great many secret projects, mostly military in nature, for the greater good of the United Planets Federation as well as the advancement of mankind.   A number of privately owned corporations also contained research centers inside the facility and even worked jointly to produce new hardware for the military.

It began to appear like the enemy knew all about Rahias and was scouting the entire surrounding area before launching an attack.  To a military man an attack on such a strategic target would be too tempting to pass up
in order to deny its use in the war effort.

“Admiral, the Phantoms are about to drop out,” a staffer informed him over the room’s intercom.

That bit of news excited the elderly admiral.  This might actually be the first time they would see the enemy ships personally.  Xwai quickly moved away from the center of the room and sat back down at his desk.  The map being displayed around the room disappeared, only to be replaced with a new video feed a moment later being projected from the ceiling mounted holographic generator.

A
trio of swirling vortexes opened up at different locations fifty-four AU from the systems primary and each deposited a single RV-384 Phantom recon craft from transdimensional space.  Their subspace datalink, or sublink, powered up and quickly connected to the predeployed relay in another nearby star system.  Through the downlink each Phantom received an update on the location of the marked alien ships.  Adjusting their course individually their sensors powered up and began to search for the minute signals emanating from these vessels directly.  They also began to monitor for any signs of graviton particle emissions.  Once located the drones electro-optical systems began to focus on these specific areas of space and their Scatter drives powered up to slowly accelerate them forward.