Chapter 4
"Hyperspace target will be reached in three minutes," said the Swift Death's conn officer. Klu'koth spoke in the comm, "Leader Mej'hol, what is the battle plan once we reach the edge of the sector?"
"Our four Carriers will stay behind to form a defensive barrier. That includes your ship. The Knock-Out will head over to the Kuun-Laan, along with sixteen of our Ion Frigates."
Klu'koth frowned. "But we have twenty-five Ion Frigates. What of the other nine?" Mej'hol confirmed, "Yes. We need to have more people staying behind to prevent the Hiigarans from slipping through our ships. That means your entire fleet has to stay in reserve."
He frantically tried to argue, "But, Leader, we have more power in numbers. We would be more intimidating. You can't leave a fourth of the fleet in behind!" The reply was condescending, "Look, Magistrate, in the case of a surprise attack, we can't afford to use all of our ships in one wave. And if there isn't, then we will be able to overpower them with little effort at all. Remember, they have no combat Frigate force."
He growled. "I assume that you'll be carrying the flag?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm onboard the Razor right now. I figured that it would be better for morale if I accompanied you rear guard people. Besides, much as I love combat, I am getting old in age. That last mission took it out of me. I need to take a breather. Don't worry, everything will go as planned."
He grunted, wondering if that were true. The viewscreen went from swirling blue to dark starfield in a few seconds, and he could see some of his Strike Craft fly forward to make a defensive perimeter around the Knock-Out, which was being trailed by several gray Ion Array Frigates.
He called over the sensors officer, and ordered, "Lieutenant Vark, patch in the main viewscreen remotely to the Knock-Out's front cameras." The view then shifted to a view through the Heavy Cruiser, which began moving forward.
"Uh, sir?" said Vark.
Klu'koth looked over to the Lieutenant's station. "Yes?"
He looked down at his console, and back at his CO. "I am detecting two engine signatures out in the distance, one is the Kuun-Laan, the other is…well, I don't know. I think it's Sommtaww, but it is a bit twisted. I don't know how to explain it."
"Could it be the Clee-San?"
"No. Both of them are Mothership-class, and yet, both of them are registering as the Kuun-Laan. Oh, now this is interesting…"
"What?"
"Well, sir, if it were a trap, we would obviously notice several hundred lifeforms onboard, unless they evacuated, and, say, rigged it to explode. But I'm readign only one massive bio-signature, and it seems to be emanating from the entire ship simultaneously. Not only are these readigns off the scale, but they don't register as any life form I know of, least of all Hiigaran."
Klu'koth thought hard. Something very, very wrong had happened. He called Vark, "Enlarge the image a hundred-fold." The viewscreen changed to show an image of a large ship. He said, "Magnify it again."
The image was clearer, and it was rather disturbing. It looked like a large section of the Kuun-Laan, but rather different. A reddish patch of…blisters or something…had encroached all over the length of the hull, and it seemed to be crackling with electricity. That certainly did not seem right.
"Leader Mej'hol, are you reading this?"
He replied in a rather relaxed tone, "Oh, yes. Interesting plan, those Hiigarans have set up, but it won't stop us from going forth."
He persisted, "I'm uncertain about this, sir."
"I'm not," he concluded.
Klu'koth was frustrated; he did not believe they should move forward, but their insolence prevented him from doing anything. All he could do was watch…
The dialogue between the Knock-Out and the Kuun-Laan was garbled, but he decided that it was far from as compelling as the sight of what would happen a few seconds later. The viewscreen showed a close-up view of the Kuun-Laan's lower section, and something that looked rather like a turret, but seemed more like a biological appendage, was turning to face the Heavy Cruiser. It then flashed out a blinding light of red, and the view turned to static.
His heart started pumping. "Vark, shift view to encompass the whole battle fleet." Something was wrong, and he knew it all along. The view showed the Heavy Cruiser become invaded by the red bio-matter that had been on the Kuun-Laan. And the sounds from the ship were even more horrifying.
"Sensors down! Weapons down! Hull integrity failing! It's draining our power!"
"Oh my GOD!"
"…it's coming through the walls! It's spilling onto the floor! Ahh…AAAAAAH!"
"SHIIIIT! IT'S EATING ME!"
"(gunshots) It's sucking up my rifle's blasts!"
"-it-over-everyone dead-help--!"
Klu'koth watched in grim fascination as the Heavy Cruiser deflected the beam to hit another ship in the formation, which began the steady assimilation that the Cruiser went through. That ship consequently knocked it to the next ship, and the next and the next, until every ship in the fleet was now a distorted nightmare; a fiendish amalgamation of biomass and metal, a mere shell of what it once was, yet filled with an evident evil.
The worst part was about to happen. Half of the fleet continued on its path to partner with the Kuun-Laan, the other half, including the Knock-Out, turned around to return to the Turanic fleet.
His eyes widened. He grabbed the comm, "Now do you believe me, Mej'hol?"
"You are obviously perceptive, Magistrate. Begin revving up your hyperdrive for an emergency jump. Don't even bother launching a defensive screen, just get out of here!"
Klu'koth replied, "Don't worry about that. Half of my fighters were assimilated in that attack. I don't know what the hell happened, but I'm not going to think about it now. How long until you guys can jump out?"
"About three minutes."
"Hmm. It should be about the same for us." Three minutes seemed like no time on different circumstances, but it was 180 seconds where only one second was needed to bring on utter failure.
He walked over to the conn, and punched the buttons on the console, to calculate the optimum hyperspace route. He then went over to the tactical console, and inquired, "Commander, are you recording all of this?" He nodded. Anything that transpired here would be subject to scrutiny once they entered hyperspace. "Well, quit scanning the whole sector, and intensify your scans on a tight-beam reception aimed towards the enemy fleet. I want all the available power to record as much as you can about this thing."
Fervish with activity, he then called up his five Ion Frigates. "Hellcat Group, increase velocity to get in front of us. I don't want you endangering your lives for our sake." He paused. "And stay at least ten kilometers away from any of our vessels. If one of us gets hit by that…infection weapon, I don't want it to spread to the rest of us."
He couldn't afford to be inefficient at this point in time. He moved over to his throne. "Vark, give me a visual and range of the incoming fleet." The viewscreen shifted to show the eight Ion Frigates and Heavy Cruiser. "Range is twenty clicks and closing. ETA to jump is one minute."
Not good. That meant they would be here twenty seconds before jump. He said, "Tactical, launch some of our Ion Probes to scatter the fleet." The officer complied, and the floor shuddered as the rail gun launched their special breed of destruction. Klu'koth remained hopeful.
As the Ion Probes continued along their course, eventually entering the viewscreen's field of vision. The Probes got close to the Knock-Out, and they seemed to have succeeded, but to no avail. A structure seemingly identical to the one mounted on the Kuun-Laan module had been erected on the Cruiser, and it fired out a red beam to smash into one of the projectiles. The bio-material encrusted the hull, and the infection spread to the rest of the Probes. They abruptly froze in their flight, and turned around to fly back to their owners.
Things just got worse and worse.
The probes got close to the Ion Frigates, racing past the Carrier. Most of them detonated against the hull of one ship, and it began to infest the ship, except the combined force of all of them exploding ripped the ship apart before it could be subverted.
The last one did not have enough destructive force to rupture the hull, but it was able to propel the techno/bio virus along the whole of the ship. It crackled with enigmatic energy, and before long it had been taken over by the enemy force.
Four dozen Turanic lives lost. And a ship added to the enemy force.
The captured ship was close to the Swift Death, and it moved in sharply on an attack vector. The ship rocked from the impact of accelerated ions. A red light flashed on and off, producing an annoying strobe effect.
"Turn that damn thing off!" he ordered.
"Sorry, sir, I can't find the alarm controls!"
Damnit. Even through the epileptic-inducing light, he could see that they were twenty seconds away from autohyperspace, but the enemy wave was already on top of them. The Heavy Cruiser came within weapons range, and it fired its horrible red beam.
Klu'koth brought up a holographic model of the Swift Death. He saw that the beam had winged the vessel, hitting them on the top side, on their main comm. radar. The red organism began to creep down onto the main hull…
"Computer, eject the main comm array, authorization code 448-Alpha-Omicron! NOW!!!"
The radar shot off from the main hull mere seconds before the stuff brushed the hull. The Carrier's main Ion Cannon shot out at it, melting the metal and matter into nothingness. Heat kills everything.
Before the cruiser could charge up another shot, they escaped into a tunnel of blue light. He slumped into his chair. They had made it, but only barely. He turned to his men. "Begin researching into that organism. I want everything you have on it. This has massive priority. We won't get anything out of this, but we can lose all if we just turn the other cheek."