Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 45

Chapter 45 A Distant Kinship

Jaralt Tarlin was closely watching the Kombaric's long range scanner for the tiny, barely discernable flash that had just caught his eye. His commander Angelika Aelfric was still in her rest cycle, so he didn't want to disturb her unless he caught another flash. Often times large objects, or spacecraft just at the edge of the scanner's range wouldn't register normally, but sometimes would cause the sensors to react with a very brief flash. There it was again off to the port side,

"Commander," he called over the ships comm to her cabin, "I'm picking up intermittent ant flashes on the scanner, I think something or someone is attempting to flank us."

"I'll be right up, go to full cloak, and alert the others"

"Will do."

Instructing the pilot to cloak the ship, and activating the general stations alarm, captain Tarlin alerted the cruiser Hershok, destroyer Narjasic, recon fighter Kormath, and the gunship Durzok. As Angelika came on deck, another screen went to split screen, showing the other commanders.

The five craft made up task force Kalika, prowling the far reaches of a sector the Falthians had only recently taken an interest in.

"What do we have?" Asked Angelika as she acknowledged the others appearing on the screen. Pointing to the very edge of the scanner screen, captain Tarlin said,

"Keep an eye on the very left edge of the screen commander." Almost on command, there was a very faint flash,

"I saw it then," she announced as the other commanders acknowledged spotting the flash as well. Commander Edvar Korthal of the Hershok was the acting admiral of the task force spoke,

"We seem to be getting a somewhat better reading over here; my guess is that someone is shadowing us, trying to find out who we are. Let's spread out so our collective presence doesn't defeat our cloaking advantage."

"Commander Korthal?" asked Angelika's husband Draycon Aelfric, "Are we still making for Gale Celesta?"

"Affirmative, however, let's travel an indirect course, If someone is following us, I want to keep them guessing until the last moment. Angelika, I'd like you to throw the Kormath out to your port side, far enough out to get a better picture of what we might be up against, but not so far they could be ambushed."

"By your command," she replied.

Gradually the tiny fleet spread out, the intermittent flashes had disappeared, but nobody thought for a moment that whoever was out there had lost interest, and had simply left.

Almost as soon as Gale Celesta became more than just a distant star, scanners started picking up indications of a spacecraft somewhat larger than one of the destroyers, at this point the task force went to general alarm, and flight squadron Nova, aboard the Hershok was put on flight ready status. Speculation over whether the craft might be friend or foe, was settled, when sensors indicated the craft was moving towards them, along with readings indicating fighters were starting to appear.

As an added precaution, the admiral ordered the task force to shut down their engines, and use their gravity jets to spread out. If this craft was hostile, then perhaps they could ambush it. The unknown ship approached cautiously, its fighters formed a protective shield. Everyone in the task force watched and waited, so far, so good, they weren't being picked up, but admiral Korthal knew it couldn't last. The ship they were now looking at looked ragged, it bore no insignia of any kind, in fact, the craft looked s though it needed a serious re-fit, however the fighters appeared to be quite active, and in good repair. Each had single engine two stubby winglets each mounting two weapons nacelles.

Admiral Korthal then ordered the gunship Durzok to slowly line itself up with the destroyer like craft,

"The moment they take any hostile action, you open up with everything you've got captain, they know there's something out here, just not what." He then ordered the Narjasic to de-cloak,

"Stand by your weapons commander, if you detect their weapons systems going hot, don't wait, open up but concentrate on the fighters until the squadron is up and out. Once the "show" starts, as I think it will, everyone else de-cloak and pick your targets."

The unknown ship made the first move, opening up on the Narjasic almost as soon as she de-cloaked. Her first shots were repelled by the Narjasic's shields, but then the Durzok appeared, and opened up with her heavy firepower. This was the first time the Durzok had fired her weapons in anger, her massive pulse cannon sending pellets of concentrated energy ripping through the craft's force shields and knocking out the ships engines. Meanwhile the rest of task force Kalika had materialized, laying into the already battered ship, as well as taking on the fighters. The Durzok then emitted a dense field of special mines designed to destroy force shields along with smaller craft, creating a protected flank.

By this time the Nova squadron was making their appearance, diving in among the enemy craft. The destroyer-like craft appeared to be dead, only a small section of its weapons banks still firing, before long, even those had stopped firing. This seemed to be a signal for the remaining fighters to break off, and flee into space. So far, the task force had been lucky,

"We took them by surprise," pointed out admiral Korthal during the post combat conference.

"It looks like those fighters are heading towards the general direction of Gale Celesta, perhaps that is their base." Angelika then spoke,

"Sir, I've been there, that planet doesn't have the technical ability to build craft such as we encountered, there may be a raider base there, Tarmon here believes those were raider craft."

"I'm aware of the planet from your briefing notes commander," replied the admiral, "The question is, do we want to go there?"

"Well Admiral," said Angelika, "If the raiders have established a base there, I fear for those people, Tarmon is worried as well, if they are being threatened or oppressed by the raiders, then I think we have an obligation to help them."

"I see," replied Kormath, "You are aware that our involvement might be questioned by naval command."

"I am aware of that sir," replied Angelika, "I'll admit the Celestians were a real pain in the rear, but we met some good people there, if there is a problem there, we are the only ones with the power to stop it if that's what is needed. I'm not asking to give them advanced tech, merely lend a hand if that's what's needed." The admiral thought about it for a few moments, then replied,

"Very well. Captain Yarod, I want you, to head for this Gale Celesta, I will send a couple of our long range fighters to accompany you. Don't start anything, right now, we just need "eyes," I don't want to jump into something we can't get out of, is that understood?"

"Yes sir, any thing interesting I'll transmit back on the K-band."

"Good luck, captain," replied admiral Korthal, "if your spotted, get out of there fast."

"Understood admiral, captain Yarod out."

After the Kormath and two fighters had left, admiral Korthal ordered a marine boarding party aboard the drifting hulk to gather any information they could find.

"Prisoners?" asked the marine commander,

"No more than two, and only if there is no danger to you or your team."

The boarding party reported the hull had been breached, noting,

"That pulse cannon sure makes a terrible mess," said the officer in charge, "I'm transmitting images right now." Everyone saw various sections of the ship's interior simply shredded from the energy particles that had literally gone through the hull like a hot knife through butter. Sudden decompression had killed whoever had been on board. The marines returned images of some of the dead raiders, revealing humanoid beings marked with bright tattoo's covering their faces, as well as arms and upper chest areas. Their heads all had a very distinct brow, due to a ridge like bone structure, short stubby noses, and what was first thought to be no ear lobes, turned out to be self amputated ears. Another discovery vindicated Angelika's desire to help the Celestians. What was described as a torture chamber, revealed the bodies of two women, and one man, the women having been violated numerous times, and all appeared to have died horribly. The marines ripped out every data pack, memory storage, unit, as well as several hand held computers before returning to the Hershok.

Mikah Ulric, Dr. Partha Kran Karrak, and Tarmon immediately set to work deciphering all the recoverable data they could pull out of the computers, and the ship's memory store. About a shon later, Ulric and his team came up with an initial report.

"It appears that they call themselves "The Skave," announced Mikah,

"We found some coordinates but they don't match our units of measurement, more work will have to be done on that. Angelika was correct, they have set up a base on Gale Celesta, and have practically enslaved the whole planet, however the population wasn't that large when we previously visited the planet. We discovered references to large deposits of something called "Malcandrite," whatever that is. Anyway large segments of the population have been put to work mining this substance." Angelika was visibly upset by all this, although she didn't think a whole lot of the Celestians, they didn't deserve this.

"We also discovered all their transmission codes and bandwidths, as well as other codes we are still in the process of deciphering."

"Well that cuts it," exclaimed admiral Korthal, "As soon as that hulk is destroyed, we will immediately make for Gale Celesta.

"Mikah, I want those codes immediately incorporated into our data system, that could just be the edge we need. Was there any information on the Skaven's strength on the planet?"

"Only that there seemed to be a shortage of them to guard the prisoners, there are several references to the "Zhalan," which I can only assume is a spacecraft of some type."

"Well with those communication codes," replied admiral Korthal, "We can jam their transmissions; possibly even redirect any other craft they may have there." As soon as the meeting had concluded, and the task force ready to depart, the Hershok focused all her weapons on the remains of the raider ship practically vaporizing it.

As they came nearer to Gale Celesta, the Hershok began to receive coded transmissions from the returning Kormath.

"Large craft very similar to one we destroyed orbiting over planet. Scanners indicate roughly three squadrons of fighters based at various points on the planet. Also picked up signs of hidden base located on far side of planet. Due to security concerns, we could not get any closer."

Admiral Korthal called another commanders meeting in which he stated.

"The sheer number of fighters is going to give us trouble; however those codes will be a godsend. That hidden base interests me, captain Yarod; I'm assigning you the task of capturing that base and destroying it. To that end, I'm ordering commander Brithik to send six fighters with you, plus a small contingent of marines to assist in capturing that base. I need information, and I'm going to need it quickly. The rest of us will be dealing with this ship of theirs, as well as the fighter threat, so we'll have our hands full. Act decisively, and with all due speed. Hit them hard, and quickly, leave no survivors."

The admiral then delivered a general statement,

"I don't need to remind everyone that this will be the first major action the Falthian navy has taken, certainly in my lifetime. You have all had the best training available. We drill long and hard for exactly situations such as this, all I can ask is that everyone do your duty, and now let us proceed to our proper stations."

The Kormath along with six Starmaster fighters came screaming down out of the sky towards the Skaven base, just as all the raider communication frequencies became blocked. The base was concealed under a heavy canopy of trees, which the attack group proceeded to set on fire. The plasma cannons caused the trees to explode in fire which quickly engulfed the base. Before long, the whole area was a conflagration of smoke and fire; however two raider craft tried to lift off but were immediately shot to pieces. The seven craft continued to circle the area searching for any survivors, but the fire had consumed everything marking the site with a huge cloud of smoke reaching into the sky.

Meanwhile, the rest of the task force had engaged the Zhalan attacking it and the few fighters that managed to escape from it. Jamming the raider communication channels was the game changer; the fighters based on the planet were cut off from the Zhalan, effectively isolating it from their assistance. With two destroyers, a heavy cruiser and a gunship assaulting it, the raider ship didn't last long, and as soon as it no longer posed a threat, the Durzok laid a wide swath of mines as the task force took up defensive positions, and cloaked.