Legacy of the Guardians
by AJ Marks
Part 30
A warfleet of black ships approached the target planet. The inhabitants would never know what happened, or why when they finished. They only understood their enemies were too far away to do anything about this. They would hand out punishment for failure, something they had little tolerance for.
The ships were a variety of shapes, and no apparent source of engines or power systems. Their weapons were hidden to confuse anyone who might glance a ship and mistake it for something else. Hangars for fighters and landing craft were covered until needed. Everything designed for secrecy.
The small defenses of the race had already been swept aside in a brief battle. The fear the defenders felt made it easy to overwhelm and crush them. Now nothing would stand in their way from exacting vengeance for failure.
Fighters prepared to launch as shuttles of landing craft filled with armed soldiers waited the order to descend to the surface. Larger ships headed towards their position in orbit over the planet to begin planetary bombardment.
On the surface the inhabitants of the planet had only started to understand they were under attack, and the panic grew. Information trickled in about the attack to all parts of the planet even as they understood warships were settling in around the planet. Most thought they would die in the orbital bombardment.
The fear dissolved the normal civil order as the instinct to survive took over. People ran in the streets as people fought to evacuate the larger cities and to what they hoped might be safety.
Above the surface, the large ships settled into orbit, relishing the fear coming from the planet. Weapon systems appeared all over the hull locking onto the targets on the surface. The perfection of waiting to allow fear to increase fueled their passion. A hunger they loved to feel, and their abilities allowed that fear to grow. Doom, death and destruction, this was their battlefield and they savored it.
*****
Ahmed paced back and forth on the bridge of the Boston. The crew was not the same one he had on the Moscow, but they knew their jobs and did them well. The pervious captain had done a good job and the crew carried out the orders, no matter how strange. Though he heard some whispers of order, wondering what was going on.
“Are we in scanner range yet?” Ahmed asked, his gut telling him something was wrong. The admiral told him only that the same group which destroyed the Skartians might be here as well. He had so many questions, like why and who, but had carried out the order, and now was moving with caution into Dedian space about to reach their homeworld.
“Still out of range sir, but should be able to see in a few minutes,” the scanner operator said.
“Let me know the moment you see anything,” Ahmed said, heading over to sit down in the chair. He felt uneasy, nervous and jumpy for some reason. Looking across at the crew he saw the actions in their movements.
“Sir, I have something,” the scanner operator said, causing Ahmed to quickly move over to the scanner. “Several ships orbiting the planet that do not match any known ships.”
“Have they spotted us?” Ahmed asked, getting a negative response. “All ships stop, communications relay the information to the main fleet.”
Now they would wait to see what would happen next. He only had to wait a bit before Admiral was contacted. Ahmed felt sure that the ships around the planet were settling into orbit for planetary bombardment. He had seen the same thing when the Skartians had attacked the Ilderian homeworld. This enemy was not interested in conquering, they wanted to destroy the planet. He watched as the admiral thought about what to do.
“The fleet isn’t that far behind you, relay the scans from the moment you were in range,” the admiral ordered. Ahmed nodded to the scanner operator who complied and then waited a few more seconds as the admiral looked it over. “They haven’t opened fire on the planet yet. Captain, I want you to attack, but I have only one target, it seems to be a command ship. Doing it might throw them into chaos and allow us the time to arrive before any attack occurs on the planet.”
Ahmed received the information and target, looking at it for a few seconds hoping the admiral was right. The ship was small, and did not seem very significant, but he trusted the admiral this far, he would continue to do so for now. If that ship was the command ship, it would do exactly what the admiral thought, an old tactic but one that might work.
“Relay the target to the other ships,” Ahmed ordered, watching as the order was carried out. “All ships, move out.”
*****
The large star shaped ships finished moving into position around the planet, launch bay doors opened and waiting the final order to attack. All weapons forced on the planet, ready and willing to participate in the destruction of the planet. Each main weapon began a power build up, draining energy from the engines.
Few inhabitants looked up, noticing the sky light up with hundreds of points of light as orbiting ships powered up, ready to open fire. If the situation had not been so deadly, it would have been beautiful.
On board one of the star-shaped ships an operator noticed something wrong. Movement from behind the fleet. Taking a closer look to identify the ships, a chill went though him, recognizing the sight.
Several fast approaching warships were not a welcome sight to them. To their surprise the ships did not engage the first ships, but instead continued past them causing confusion in the fleet for several precious seconds.
On board the Boston Ahmed looked on in surprise. The scanners indicated the fleet had prepared to fire on the planet’s surface when they came rushing in. Now as they approached the target he ordered all ships to fire.
“Fire a few times at the target then back out firing at any ship I our way,’ Ahmed ordered.
He had no idea how much damage, if any, his weapons might be able to inflict. All ships opened fire upon a stunned enemy. The barrage of weapon’s fire closed in on the target, to what an outsider might consider a useless target, until ships started to move themselves into position to take the fire. May were too late and the first volley struck the target and the second volley was blocked by several ships.
The Boston and her escorts had already turned and were on the way out of the enemy, stunned at the actions taken. They finally recovered and started began to chase the enemy.
“All ships, head towards the main fleet, see if we can get a few to follow us. The Boston rocked as it was hit. He waited to hear the damage relieved when it came back the shields held. The Boston responded in kind with several return volleys which did not do much damage in return.
In the confusion of the battle the small ship targeted in the attack took the brunt of the first attack. Ahmed and his small group of ships were too busy retreating to see what happened, but the attack penetrated the shields, and took considerable damage. Small escape pods jettisoned from the ship even as it started to head uncontrolled towards the atmosphere of the planet. Its hull glowing red as parts of it broke up. Still a large chuck impacted the surface. The explosion claimed several hundred lives on the surface.
With the destruction of the command ship, the enemy fleet became disorganized as who was next in command had to be worked out. Several bombarding ships switched their targets from the planet to the fleeing ships.
Ahmed hoped that the Boston would be strong and fast enough to make it to the fleet. Most of the enemy ships were targeting the Boston simply because it was the largest, and probably most powerful ship in the group. So far the shields were holding and no damage to any essential systems.
“How many are following us?” Ahmed asked, waiting for the answer.
“Looks like half the fleet is turning to follow us, the rest are sitting there, most weapon build-ups have dissipated, only a few actually fired,” the scanner operator replied.
“Half, good, looks like it’s working, and hopefully they are leaderless at the moment,” Ahmed said, more to himself than anyone else. He swayed in his chair, strapped in as another hit impacted the shields. Damage control was busy dealing with everything and any wounded.
“Admiral Dinen is on the line for you captain,” the communications officer said interrupting Ahmed’s concentration of the battle, and ordered it put through to his console.
He looked down to see the admiral’s face. “What is the situation captain?” he asked.
“We made an attack run on the target ship, and then quickly moved out. The enemy fleet seemed slightly stunned, and were confused until about the time we started out attack. We then retreated and seem to have about half the enemy fleet behind us,” Ahmed said in a brief statement. The other half was still around the planet, but no more scans of planetary bombardment. Don’t know what they’re doing now.”
“So we have a split fleet in front of us and the command ship? Destroyed?” Admiral Dinen asked.
“Unknown sir, we don’t have it on our screen, but cannot confirm its destruction,” Ahmed said honestly.
“Okay, we should reach you in a few minutes,” the admiral said. “Prepare to come about when we meet.”
“Understood,” Ahmed replied, relaying the order to the rest of the crew. He also knew there was still half an invasion fleet back at the planet which could cause a lot of damage. He hoped the rest of the fleet would arrive quickly and they could return to the planet before the loss of life became too great.
Back on the planet, several inhabitants looked up wondering what had happened in space around their planet. With the news reports the invasion should have occurred, and the bombardment underway. Instead the lights which had lit up the atmosphere disappeared, and reports of a ship crashing into the surface had made the news reports.
The few with access to scanners in space watched a small, fast force attacked the invasion fleet with a headlong suicide attack which left one enemy ship heavily damaged. It had plunged into the atmosphere. After the attack almost half the fleet went after the small force, while the other half sat in orbit. Everyone seemed confused by what happened. They all wondered who this mysterious force was to attack such an overwhelming force like they did.
Some fleeing to the shelters paused, looking up out of confusion. They had mentally calculated how long they had, and the time they thought they had should have been up. They were amazed to see a calm sky, belying the severity of what lay out of sight. A short time ago the sky threatened to swallow them alive, now, nothing.
Above the atmosphere the invasion fleet swarmed to recover the escape pods of the command ship. Time and effort were taken to reorganize their command structure to a working form once more, thought it now was spread across several ships. They realized almost half the fleet now was in pursuit of the attacking force. Now they would have to reposition their fleet, or wait for the ships to return before attacking the planet once more.
Fighters were given the command to launch, and formed up ready to begin strafing raids on the planet’s surface. New targets were given after looking over the position of the fleet. They worked quickly, dismissing the small fleet as destroyed, even if they were the enemy, they had too few ships to stop them now.
Ahmed’s fleet continued to run and had outpaced the enemy, and noticed that their weapons had a distance range advantage. It sounded strange, but he would use any advantage he might have. His ships continued to attack despite the range limiting the hits.
“Captain, main fleet will be in range in a couple of minutes,” the second in command said. Ahmed felt some relief at that.
“Tell all ships to break away the moment the main fleet is in range, we want to get out of the line of fire before coming around to re-engage,” he said, watching as the helm nodded, ready to execute the order.
After several long minutes, the Boston and her escorts turned to the side, scattering in front of the main fleet. To the approaching fleet it appeared like a desperate attempt to flee. They would hunt them down and destroy them easily.
End part 30
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