He headed towards the door, but it opened long before he arrived. The squat form of their squadron’s personnel robot hovered in. He paid it no mind, assuming someone had sent it to get a snack. As he reached the door, he turned to watch it hover near the hologram. He began to say something when the holograms winked out and the lights rose to half intensity.

  “Pardon sir, optics are out of alignment, needed to raise the light, please excuse me,” the robot announced and zipped off towards the pantry.

  Zithe shook it off and headed back to his room. Sleep would be a good thing right now. Calling Felain over from the Pride of Niatoo might be even better. Perhaps we can discuss “tactics” in my bunk.

  UCSB DATE: 1003.208

  Bridge, UCSBTS-27413, System: T-18-E-37

  Zithe stared at the tactical display—fighters were zipping in and out of the engagement zone as the transports slugged it out. Their ship rocked under another volley and he checked to see which Red Force ship had made the attack, the Nobgals. He smiled; they’d fallen right into his trap. He had offered up his own ship and the Nip Tails as their bait to the Red Force, and Chertsin had taken a bite.

  Zithe made neither threats nor advances, waiting instead with his fighters in escort position as the Red Force approached. He had intended to hail the ships, to ask them their intentions, but before he could, all Sheol had broken lose. The CC’s transport opened fire, without warning, ghosting one of the Nip Tail’s fighters. Thankfully Deniv piloted the other ship; he would have hated to be knocked out of the action so early.

  Zithe then called in the rest of his fleet. The ships slipstreamed in behind the Red Force, boxing them in. A hect later, Zithe could taste the blood of victory. Damages were heavy on both sides; their own habitation rings hadn’t rotated for half a hect. It could be far worse, as fully half of the Red Force’s transports had been ghosted near the jump point. They would remain there, unable to move, until the battle ended. Most of the Red Force fighters and attack craft were still fighting and hammering away at the Blues. Zithe sneered at the numbers. He’d lost over half of his fighters, but the Red Force had only claimed the Black Vises transport in the fighting.

  The fighting was so intense that the observer corvette, the UCSBS Gudell, came in for a closer view. Zithe felt like he was at a championship slamball match with one goal separating him from victory.

  A fighter drove towards Zithe’s ship before Gavit slipped in behind and ghosted it. The final obstacle to Zithe’s goal was now eliminated. “Helm, all ahead full! The gates are opened. All batteries. You have a clear shot on Chertsin. Take it. Blue Force—cover our run. If we take out Chertsin the rest should surrender.” The sudden acceleration pushed Zithe back in his seat as the transport surged ahead. Looking towards the observation window, he found Chertsin’s ship framed within it. “Torpedoes, on my mark,” he held for a moment until the light glinted off the other ship’s bridge dome. “FIRE!!!”

  Two unarmed shark torpedoes streaked out from either side of Zithe’s ship in response. Low-powered laser fire bridged the gap between the ships as Chertsin’s defensive turrets engaged the weapons.

  A rapid hum click echoed across the bridge from Bichard’s station. Bichard’s warning hum distracted Zithe from his prey. He turned to communications officer, scowl on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m getting a strange reading from the jump point. Something appears to be coming in-system.”

  That can’t be right. Zithe turned all of his attention to Bichard. “What do you mean? All the transports are here.”

  “Not sure, hold on. I have two readings now. It’s the observer corvette from 38 and something else, something big.”

  “All ships. Nobgal Four…”

  Zithe stabbed at the open link control on his armrest. “You’ve been ghosted Nobgal Four. Don’t tie up the link.”

  “Nobgal Four declaring an emergency. We’ve got eyes on a corvette and I don’t know what the Sheol it is, but it’s coming out of hyperspace right on top of us.”

  Zithe felt his blood curdle and turned towards Bichard. “Get me a visual.”

  Bichard nodded and the tactical hologram at the center of the bridge disappeared, replaced by the sensor reconstruction of the ships exiting hyperspace. Zithe felt his stomach hit his throat at the sight. A massive ship matching the descriptions coming from command of a Gorvian Strike Corvette was chasing the observer corvette from system 38 through the jump point. The splotchy blood red pattern painted across the Gorvian’s hull made his stomach knot as he looked at the asymmetric craft. Nothing about it looked right, from the centrally positioned engines to the array of turrets on its surface. On one side it looked like some great beast had taken a bite out of the craft. Worse, a massive Plasma Beam Cannon emerged from the wound like a stripped bone.

  Without warning, the massive strike corvette opened fire. The huge cannon’s plasma beam speared the observer corvette. Zithe’s eyes went wide at the sight: he’d only seen simulations of plasma beams before and to see one in action chilled him to the core. An instant later the beam emerged out the other end of the observer corvette. Then it swept down, cleaving the ship in two before it dissipated.

  “Bichard. Can you reach any survivors of the observer corvette?” Zithe asked, voice cracking.

  “Negative! I’m reading multiple hull breaches on the attacking ship. The fight didn’t start here ” Bichard replied, his antennae drooping.

  “Emergency Command Override! Malridge Three,” Captain Malridge, of the Gudell, boomed over the link. “I am taking command! All ships assume emergency escape vectors.”

  Zithe looked over at his status board. All the red sections went blue in response. Every one of the ghosted craft came back to life on the tactical hologram. The scene also revealed just how close Nobgal Four was to the corvette. While the rest of the fighting pulled away from the jump point, they’d actually drifted closer. “Nobgal Four! Get out of there…”

  Zithe felt the words catch in his throat as the space around the fighter lit up. Several of the corvette’s smaller turrets, all of which were still bigger than the Firehawk, opened fire. The fighter disappeared a moment later. No sensor returns reached their arrays, the craft reduced to atoms by the assault.

  “All ships. Gudell Actual,” Captain Malrdige called out. “Command Staff. Fall back to emergency rendezvous point Echo, and assume EMCON condition 1.”

  Zithe turned to Telsh at the helm. “Telsh get us the Sheol out of here, evasion course.”

  “I be on it,” Telsh replied and the transport lurched as the slipstream drive activated. All of the other cadet craft escaped along their own vectors.

  Aft Cafeteria, UCSBTS-27304

  “We tried running straight for the other jump point. But the bastards were right on top of us, despite our head start. They had to be running almost point nine light,” Cadet Fernes commented as he walked into the cafeteria with Chertsin. The other cadets and command staff were already there, except Captain Malridge.

  Chertsin nodded, his uniform half open. “At that kind of speed they could have beaten us all to the jump point. It would have been a slaughter.”

  “Exactly. So we vectored away and it didn’t even attempt to close on us. It went straight for the jump point and just sat there. What’s the deal with that?”

  “That’s standard Gorvian tactics. Even with one ship they’ve secured both jump points,” Tadeh Qudas commented.

  Chertsin looked back, defiance on his face. “How could they possibly do that?”

  Zithe shook his head as he looked out the viewport towards the stationary forward spin ring. The Pogrin’s Payback had overstressed the rotation mechanism when they’d escaped into the ring system of the local gas giant. “They’ve mined the jump points. We detected their first mines while we were retreating. They took out the jump buoy too. The mine is probably an automated turret of some kind that also acts as their jump buoy.”

  “Zithe’s right,” Felain commented, stepping towards him. “We detected them setting up another one at the jump point to 36.”

  Captain Malrdige entered the cafeteria and the whole room snapped to attention. “As you were.” He said nothing more until he reached the center of the room, the look on his face grim.

  Cadet Teflin had managed to get his ship to the rendezvous point first. Ever since the other had ships started to arrive, their cafeteria had become the place to gather and discuss what to do. Chertsin and Fernes had been the last to arrive. The ships masked their electronic and thermal output the best they could, doing their best to avoid detection as the Corvette sat at the jump point back to System 36.

  Captain Malridge looked about the room and sighed. “The UCSBS Watlen, the observer corvette from training system 36, has been destroyed.”

  The room let out a collective gasp and even Zithe was startled. How? The ship’s captain, Commander Traic was one of their most experienced Commanders. He’d even taught starship combat classes. To hear that he’d been killed was almost too much to bear.

  “The Watlen responded to our initial call for reinforcements. However, they arrived at the jump point after the Gorvian’s had mined it. They were splashed before they could get their combat shields up to power.”

  The room went silent again. Felain squeezed Zithe’s hand and he patted hers in return. The Academy’s Mangler Class Corvettes that the observers crewed were some of the toughest light ships out there. Their thick armor and shields made them ideal to slug it out with bigger ships. Zithe had taken several into simulated combat and had earned commendations for clever use of the ship’s multiple beam cannons. To learn that this Gorvian ship, a ship the size of a cruiser, had taken out two of them in short order made him wonder about their chances of survival.

  “Combine that with the loss of the Narick and we are on our own. We do have the advantage of numbers. Despite the mines, and as powerful and as fast as that corvette is, it can’t be in two places at once. The Watlen did manage to relay a sensor bounce to us before they were destroyed. Working together, we can overwhelm the mines with a coordinated strike, if that corvette isn’t there.”

  Nodio, the Nip Tails’ squadron commander, looked at the hologram of the massive corvette again and shuddered. “So, what then? Do we split up? Take our chances and risk sacrificing half our numbers?”

  Tadeh Qudas shook his head, the grim visage forcing the cadet to sit back again. “No. There’s a protocol in place for a contingency such as this.”

  Zithe rubbed his eyes, hoping no one would ask any more stupid questions. When no one asked, he sat back relieved and turned his attention back to Captain Malridge. Felain slipped her hand into his again.

  “What we’ll do is to load up as many cadets as we can onto a few transports,” Tadeh Qudas explained. “Then we will send out the remaining craft with minimum crews using various vectors to draw the enemy away. We’ll have to use our sensor-masking equipment to make each decoy craft appear to be several ships. After the Gorvians have committed to chasing down one of the decoys, the escape ships will make their way to the nearest jump point out of the system. We will take out the mine, and escape. All other decoy craft will either attempt to escape or go to ground and hide until reinforcements can arrive.”

  Cadet Fernes held up his macomm, linking it to the hologram at the center of the room. “Sir, utilizing all available acceleration couches and restraints, we can make it work with six transports. That also assumes a minimum of three crewmembers for each decoy. We don’t have enough cadre for that, unless your crew...”

  “I realize that cadet. Faculty advisors will command and staff each decoy transport with crew deficiencies filled by cadet volunteers. My crew and I will lead the escape effort. We’ll take point and the brunt of any damage from the mine. So I’ll need everyone I have. Once the mine is taken out, and the escape transports are out of the system, we will pursue and harass the Gorvians to buy the decoys time to escape. Even factoring that in, there’s a very real chance that the decoy the Gorvians go after will be destroyed. If they are able, the crew should try and escape using their shuttles. If they can’t escape…, we must accept that we are sacrificing three to save hundreds”

  “What if we just wait them out?” Chertsin asked. “Once we’re all overdue won’t the academy send in a task force to find out what happened to us?”

  Captain Malridge nodded. “And how will they find us? The jump buoys have been destroyed. Before the escaping craft can jump, they’ll have to leave some kind of temporary jump buoy. Commander Tadeh Qudas, Cadet Zithe, you’ve got ex-buoy boys on your crew. Get them on that.”

  Zithe nodded. “Nodio, can you send Deniv over too? I’m sure Blazer could use his help.”

  Cadet Teflin visibly chafed at that idea. “What about calling for help? Let Confed know what’s going on.”

  Commander Eshrin shook his head. “No good. We were using the buoys for long-range communications. There are no tach-comm relays within transmission range either. Even if there were, we would still face the problem of how reinforcements would find us.”

  Zithe looked out the window across the room as the radiation shadow shield came back into view. “What about that carrier signal? Since we’re gathered back together it should be strong enough so that if we directed it towards a jump point it could act as a buoy signal.”

  Felain shook her head. “No, it’s gone. Whoever set it up, shut it down right after we’d started docking back together. And we still don’t know its source.”

  Zithe felt his nose scrunch up. “Damn. What about fighting? Why not use the decoys to attack the corvette? It’ll be fourteen to one, fifteen with your ship sir.”

  “We will follow the protocol cadet,” Captain Malridge replied, his gaze turning Zithe’s spine to ice, something even Tadeh Qudas’ no longer did. “However, you won’t go unarmed. Engineering crews should, even now, be reconnecting the plasma feeds to the transport and fighter’s plaser cannons. You’ll also pack torpedoes and missiles with excavating charges. They won’t have the punch of standard warheads, but it should be enough to do some damage in a fight.”

  Zithe let the silence flow over him and looked around the room. No one looked pleased with the plan, fear etching many faces. Even he felt reluctant to attempt an attack on the corvette. We have to do something! We can’t let the crews of those corvettes die in vain.

  “You’ve all heard the stories about the last Gorvian conflict,” Captain Malridge continued. “You think you know what they’re capable of, but there is so much more that you do not know. Inform your crews of the plan, and prepare all ships to depart. We can’t stay here more than a cycle without detection. If that ship is carrying slipstream torpedoes we are just one giant target. Have all volunteers contact their advisor officers directly and undock all ships. Even at EMCON 1, we’re too big a target to stay docked together. We will transfer crews using individual dockings and the shuttles. Maintain EMCON discipline, tight-band laser links only. Dismissed!”

  Zithe waited as the rest of the cadets and staff had exited the room. Even Cadet Teflin and Commander Eshrin left, and it was their ship. He walked up to Captain Malridge. The senior officer remained lost in thought as he stared at the hologram hovering before them. “Sir. I wish to volunteer.”

  Without even turning to face him Captain Malridge replied. “Request denied. I need you to lead the escape craft out of here. The other cadets respect and will follow you, even Chertsin. You’ve grown greatly while out here cadet, proven yourself a leader. Now see everyone else home safe. That’s your mission.”

  “Yes sir, but what about you?”

  “Once you and the others are away, I’ll command the fallback of the decoys, but I need crews. We’ve twenty slots that need filling. Find me volunteers.”

  Forward Cafeteria, UCSBTS-27413

  Marda had never seen the transport this busy before. Everyone was working at a fevered pace: some to get the ship ready for combat while others removed as much excess mass as they could. She knew that the latter was for naught. Even if they threw out every bit of their cargo the ship would gain only an infinitesimal velocity increase once they’d lit the slipstream drive. Their time would be better spent finding ways to increase their weapons output or thicken their shields. Blazer and Bichard had just finished rigging together their makeshift jump buoy. Marda dragged her husband to the cafeteria for a much needed break.

  “Fine! Throw your life away!” Arion roared as he stormed out of the bay, leaving Alieha within, crying to herself.

  Marda and Blazer exchanged a quick look. She nodded to Blazer, and he took off after Arion.

  Marda headed inside and took a seat beside the weeping Alieha. Marda had no idea what had caused this. She had never seen Alieha cry before. What could Arion have done to bring the goddess of Academy 13 to tears like this?

  “I suppose you want to know what happened?” Alieha asked, her voice cracking.

  Marda said nothing but rested a hand on Alieha’s shoulder.

  “I told Arion that I’d volunteered to pilot one of the decoy ships. He tried to get me to change my mind, said he couldn’t let me take the risk, ‘that I’m just a psychologist and navigator after all, not a real soldier like him.’”

  Marda turned towards the door, Arion said that? Alieha may not have been in Special Operations, but she was just as much a soldier as any other cadet aboard. “Did he really say that?”

  Alieha wiped away at the tears smearing her face. “Not in so many words. But he pleaded with me to go back and tell Tadeh Qudas that I’d changed my mind. I told him that it’s better for me to do this. I’m more expendable than other cadets, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he couldn’t look at me anymore and left.”

  Marda shook her head. “He didn’t mean it. Emotions are high right now. You know that Arion loves you. He just can’t imagine what it would be like to lose you. Give him a couple hects to clear his head. He’ll come to his senses.”