Chapter V (Started, but subject to change and not even half way done)

V

 

            The battle over the mining planet had been one of the few in which Kent and I had been aboard separate ships.  Because it was an invasion, we had an invasion division instead of the normal combat division.  We retained three ships, but four others were substituted for larger, more armored, but less armed invasion ships used largely for the transportation of troops.  Among these was the very powerful ANS Laureola.  I, being the senior captain of the division, was put in control of the Laureola instead of the Ad Astra, which would still be the command ship, but which would not be taking such an active role in the combat.

            Sean reacted immediately to the abduction of my ship.  The tracking system was activated, but it could only begin functioning after we exited the warp.  Michelson was aware of the tracking system, and tried desperately to figure out how to disable the system, but was unable until shortly after we exited warp.  In the small amount of time, Sean was able to record the coordinates.  Without hesitation, he set out for the planet.  A brief message was sent to Stewart explaining in very succinct honesty exactly what he was doing.  Then, in the middle of the battle, he activated his warp drive and was off.

            We were lucky in that the POW camp was located on a planet, rather than some moon over an uncolonized planet, or in the middle of an asteroid belt.  Such prisons were not uncommon, but not as common as one may think either.  They made escape a little harder and allowed for more peaceful use of habitable planets, but they were also very expensive to maintain.  Only the wealthier nations kept their large prison camps in space.  Of course, the rebels rarely took prisoners.  The hostile independents did on occasion, but we were fighting Execronians, so I was fairly surprised when we weren’t all immediately killed.  I had assumed the captured ship would be sold off at a rebel auction for a profit, or retained by the commander of the capturing pirates.

            It did not take long for us to realize that we had not been captured by pirates.  Their leader, Michelson, did not conduct himself like one, and the planet based camp confirmed that we were in the hands of some other antagonistic power.  The area around the camp was mostly grassy, but not what one would call grassland.  It was rather bleak really.  We arrived just before dawn, but I could already tell that the weather was overcast, and from the impression I got, that was how it was most of the time.  As expected, the camp was subterranean.  A prison camp on the surface of a planet was absurd.

            Sean reached the planet quickly.  He spread the six ships remaining under his power out over the planet in search of the ANS Laureola.  At first, the defense satellites were avoided and cloaked around, but when the search remained fruitless, they were engaged.  Finally, we were located by the rest of our division.

            Liberation arrived just before the sun.  A Lieutenant Commander that had been on board named Hector Dacre had risked his life by disguising himself as an enlisted sailor (these were not searched as thoroughly) to keep his gravity sword.  This he slipped to me as we were approaching the camp, just before we were more thoroughly searched.  Things were done alphabetically, so I was one of the last to be screened, searched, numbered, et cetera.  The moment came just before the first of us were sent down to the camp.  I, in an admittedly somewhat uncharacteristic flash of courage, led a sort of revolt.  I had the only weapon among us, so I began by killing the guards nearest me.  The first was on my left, Insert action here  Once we’d killed all the guards in our immediate vicinity and armed ourselves as well as we could, we braced for impact.  It was clear the ship was going down.  At the first sign of disorder, the beam weapon stations below us had opened fire.

            So, modestly equipped, all of us swabbies, none of us soldiers, we fled.  The sight we saw outside was awesome.  Beam weapons poured down through the pre-dawn clouds, illuminating the sky.  Antimatter-plasma hybrid torpedoes rained down upon the rebel fortifications, wreaking havoc all around us.  I had never seen a battle from this perspective before.  For the first time, I was truly seeing the wrath of Commodore Kent.

            As I had expected, though I’d had no way of knowing for sure, the prison camp was only one aspect of a larger rebel military complex.  We’d crashed about a mile and a half to the North East of it, and so ran in this direction to most efficiently put distance between us and the enemy.  There was some mildly dense forest ahead of us, so I, with my gravity sword, ran ahead, helping to hack a way through.  We were sped in our flight by a piloted flightcraft pursuing us.  Of course, it was futile to try to escape from this menace, but we tried nonetheless.  Behind this flightcraft were many computer controlled fighters.

            The flightcraft seemed to fall out of the sky, into the trees, perhaps ten meters from me.  The vegetation had begun to open up more, and I could see it clearly.  Immediately, our twenty-some poorly made rebel beam weapons were trained on it.  From the cockpit emerged a face I did not know, but that I would learn soon enough.

            Luckily, all of our beams either missed or were deflected by the craft’s still functioning shield generator.  We were ordered in almost perfect Augustonian with a barely perceptible Feraustan accent to lower our weapons.  I, recognizing an ally’s accent, obeyed, and my men followed suit.

            Specialist Peter Richter had been in pursuit of an assassin, reportedly responsible for the death of an Inopsian Prime Minister.  He’d received a tip from a rebel traitor that the culprit would be present on this planet, at this military base.  Even merely verisimilar reports of rebels from third parties were scarce, and the very few that appeared to be trustworthy were often traps, but this one had seemed promising.  When he’d arrived, he’d found a battle underway.  He’d assumed that the Augustonians had already located this man, and were attempting to capture him.  When he’d met with the Commodore in command, however, he’d learned that this was not the case.

            “So, you’ve spoken with Kent?” I asked.

            “Yes.”

            “You know who we are, then?”

            “Yes, I do.  And he wanted me to tell you that you’re running in the wrong direction.  Most of his forces are concentrated to the West of your location.  Go that way.”  Markus also knew that Sean was AWOL.  The Specialist’s discipline was rigid, and he could not relate, but if not empathy, he did have some sympathy for the Commodore’s plight.  “Oh, and Captain Yachovich!” he called me again.

            “What?

            “They’re jamming our communications.”

            I didn’t have time to appreciate the importance of this message.

            Richter left us immediately to continue his chase after John Michelson.  Taking his advice, we changed our direction, and began moving to the West.  Upon breaking through the edge of the forest, I froze.  I could identify what I saw before me, but that only contributed to my shock.  It was a field of soybeans.  It was a farm.  What purpose could it possibly serve?  I was perplexed.  The only purpose farms had ever served was to produce food.

            The necessity of flight forced me onward but did not stifle my awe.  A profound stillness stretched across the field.  Dew that had accumulated on the crop was in the process of what I suppose was evaporation, but it was accumulating only perhaps twenty feet above our heads. 

There the atmosphere became so opaque that we could not see the tops of the trees with our naked eyes.  The vapor still evaporating took on the semblance of watery wraiths, rising from the world beneath our feet to the world above our heads, neither of which were we a part.  They were two spirit worlds and we were trapped between them.

            That I could find something so poetic in such a scene showed that humanity was not lost.  Modern technology exceeded even the most fantastic tales of magic told five thousand years ago, but when faced by what was mundane five thousand years ago, I experienced a sense of wonder.

            It did not take my company long, traveling at a healthy pace, to cross the field.  We reentered woods on the opposite side.  To continue the narration, however, I shall follow Specialist Richter for a while.

            Rain was beginning to fall.  Redo scene…  I think I might do this without the rain.  Too dreary for the intensity to which I aspire.  Markus was playing the classic sniper.  Although a personal shield could keep out low energy projectiles like raindrops, Richter usually enabled selective permeability, allowing some of the water through.  "When it is raining, one is supposed to feel wet.  How can one focus on the mission at hand when one is filled with a feeling of such unnaturality?  Honestly!  To be standing in the rain and be dry is no less than absurd," he would later explain to me.  But of course, this justification was completely inapplicable to him and must have been false.  The man's mind was practically half computer, and what was organic was genetically enhanced.  He had an infinitude of will power.  Focusing on the mission at hand was never difficult for a human weapon.  But he still allowed the rain to fall on him.  I cannot explain it and I do not accept his explanation.  It would be far more fitting for someone like Sean.

            By some arcane means, Richter had ascertained that Michelson was on the ground and had also deduced his vicinity and most probable path.  "He was in a flightcraft, but one of Commodore Kent's craft took it down," he would explain to me.  I don't know how he knew this, but apparently he was correct.

 

Later

 

            Kent MPTed us onto the ship.  When we materialized, the third movement of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 7 was being played very loudly.  Sean immediately welcomed me back into the bridge of the ANS Ad Astra.  He was energized with victory.  The battle was all around us.  We were ascending quickly, followed by the flagship’s compliment of fighters.  Meanwhile, enemy fighters stricken by our beam weapons plummeted toward the surface, spewing contrails of smoke from various combusting parts.

            I pointed these out aloud.  “They’re like wakes in the air.”  The sight was common to battles, but novel in general, as modern flightcraft did not leave contrails.  In fact, the term had fallen into disuse, thus making the simile all the more appealing.

            Sean smiled and nodded.  “We’re going to take back the Laureola.  Do you know where it is?  We’ve had a little trouble locating it.”

            Before I could respond, the rumble of warpdrives deactivating in atmosphere poured down from overhead.  We looked up and saw a couple divisions of UGC warships, most of them Augustonian!