Taking Space

ASSAULT

The bridge of the capital factory ship had sixteen separate images on its viewports sent from Steven’s drones.

Michael took one that he thought was the best angle and magnified it in the center of the viewport.

The group watched breathlessly as the armada from ULIX approached the small government procession. It was indeed half an armada, with one battleship, three frigates, one cruiser, ten assault craft, and at least three dozen Starfighters.

It was quite an impressive array of starships. One that anyone with a half a brain would know not to mess with.

Mike took a deep, shaky breath; which was exactly what they were about to do “Let’s begin,” he said, letting out the breath.

“Wait!” Stephanie interrupted. “Let’s pray first.”

“Yes, let’s,” Catherine added.

“Okay.” Michael agreed then bowed his head, and the others followed suit.

“Heavenly Father, we come before you now in the power and authority that you have given us through your son Jesus Christ. We are attempting to stand in the way of great injustice, and we just ask that you would guide us and lead us and empower us to do what needs to be done. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

Michael straightened up, looked at the others, and nodded. They nodded back, and he reached out to flip a switch.

One of the sixteen drones unfolded and began to project a cruiser-sized image.

***

Tarax Marlune quietly seethed inside. He knew the show of power was an immeasurable part of the business, and a part he usually reveled in this, however… this was politics, and he wanted nothing to do with it. If he had it his way, he and his battleship would just pop up one night and obliterate the entire offending police force, which would send a much clearer and far better message in his opinion. Cox, on the other hand, had insisted that it be done this way, going even as far as to call him small-minded straight to his face. Him. Tara. Small-minded. He clenched his fist. Cox was getting too big for his own pants hobnobbing with the…

“Sir, there is something in our way,” his second in command said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He glanced up. A massive hologram of a man in a uniform appeared on the screen. To his surprise the man looked like a commander straight out of the history books. “What the...”

“It’s sending out a message on all available channels.”

He waved his hand at her, and she brought it up on the ship's speakers.

Detecting they were listening, the hologram turned towards the battleship and started to speak.

“I am David Kell of the Lionhearted. We have reviewed the case of John Zeck and found him not guilty on the basis that his actions were in self-defense, and had not broken any of the three Great Laws. As such, no course of action may be taken against him or his compatriots. If there are those who still seek to do him harm, they will face the wrath of the Lionhearted. This is your only warning.”

Tarax’s mouth dropped open. “What is this, kindergarten?” he scoffed.

His second in command brought the Armada to a halt and looked up at him. “Your response, sir?”

“Give me coms,” he barked.

***

The five of them waited with bated breath, as the armada slowly came to a halt.

“Well, they definitely got the message,” Daniel said. “What do you think they will do about it?”

Michael began to shrug but was cut off as an angry voice crackled over the open channels.

“The Lionhearted have been dead for hundreds of years, and they have no jurisdiction here! I don’t know who you are or what you are playing, however know this: ULIX will not tolerate interlopers. If you interfere with our businesses, we will hunt you down and eliminate you! You and all those who are close to you!”

Stephanie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, wow this guy sounds nasty.”

“You can say that again,” Steven answered as he pointed at a screen witch displaying the readout from his voice recognition software.

Catherine leaned closer to the indicated screen and read the name out loud. “Tarax U. Marlune, ULIX’s chief executive over customer service.”

“Whale spit!” Daniel exclaimed. “Remind me never to get on the coms with their customer service. He’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm.”

“Longer,” Steven said as he used a finger to slide down a list on another screen. “They're at least fifteen cases of aggregate assaults here and five suspected of murder if not more. How in the world is this guy not behind bars.”

“I think it’s time we put an end to this farce of a company, what do you guys think?” Michael asked them.

“Absolutely,” Daniel declared. “Let’s obliterate them.”

Michael nodded and sent a new message out through David Kell’s computer-generated voice.

***

Suddenly, the giant hologram reached out, pointed straight at Tarax’s battleship, and shouted. “Tarax U. Marlune, we have received your death threat, and have found you guilty of intent to kill, breaking the first Great Law of ‘Thou shall not kill!’ Your battleship will now be destroyed with you on it.”

Tarax burst out into laughter. There wasn’t a force in the entire sector that could even put a dent in his ship. Whoever these people were, they were absolutely insane.

As he laughed, David Kell’s hologram shifted as if addressing someone behind him. “To all hands on his battleship: if you do not wish to share his fate, abandon the ship NOW.”

With that, the hologram of the supposed David Kell blinked out of existence.

“All right, enough of this…” He began to command when he noticed three blimps broke off from his ship. Suddenly all of his earlier mirths turned to pure anger as he realized some of his crew had actually just abandoned ship. “Turret control now!” he barked.

A display of holographic controls flared to life in front of him. He jabbed it, indicating the blimps of the escape pod as his targets and pulled the trigger.

***

A gasp escaped Stephanie’s mouth as she watched the high-powered laser turrets on the long tubular battleship melt the three escape pods into a floating slag that exploded into tiny shards, as the superheated metal came into contact with the absolute zero temperature of space.

Daniel clenched his fists and punched at the air. He shouted. “Oh! This guy is SO going down!”

“Yes, he is!” Steven said fervently, as he moved controls around. “Preparing to open the first dimensional door. Start your run now. It’ll take you some time to get up enough inertia.”

Daniel jumped into his simulated cockpit and drew down his virtual reality helmet as he took control of half of the Starfighter.

As preplanned, he pushed the fighters to their max speed and aimed them straight for the dimensional door Steven had placed four thousand galactic space units away (or rather, four K GSU or 4k SU). Daniel smiled to himself as he shook from the excitement of the battle to come. All three of his fighters slightly jerked, as the chain that strung out behind them became taut, and started to pull along the first of the fake asteroids chained together behind him. He raised the tip of his helmet to glance out over at the screen; showing the drone unfolding the tube-like metal circles that would open the dimensional door to where the Armada was.

Multiple jerks shook his controls as the other fake asteroids were pulled along, forming an extremely long tail of linked asteroids.

The first of the dimensional doors came online. Daniel cut all powers to his fighters as they passed through.

Inertia carried them forward, with the asteroids behind them.

The first of the fighters was a few seconds in front of the rest. It was slightly to the left of where it should have been, so only sixty-seven of the hundred chained asteroids behind it made through the dimensional door, before the sixty-eighth asteroid collided with the corner of the metal hoop, snapping it in half and collapsed the dimensional rift.

Daniel slapped himself in the head and looked at the others. “Sorry.”

The next two fighters were perfectly in line though and, all one hundred of their asteroids made it to the dimensional door.

However, the rest of his fighters were slightly off and only managed around eighty each, before one of their numbers grazed the tube-like structure, collapsing the continuum.

Daniel hissed in agitation.

“It’s fine, I counted on that. You're practically threading a needle. There’s only a half a foot of leeway on those doors, and I did that because we needed to make it look like you’re coming out of nowhere!”

Daniel nodded and powered back up his fighters. He aimed the first of them straight at the battleship and opened fire with all they had.

***

Tarax glared down at the stunned and shocked faces of his officers; he barked. “Let this be a lesson to all of you: ULIX does not and will not suffer incompetence nor desertion. Now return your attention to your statio…”

His voice trailed off as a chain of red blips appeared on both the starboard and port sides. “What in the…”

Warning alarms blared as lasers and particle beam cannons impacted on the battleships shield.

“Open fire!” he shouted.

A wall of pulsing beams of lasers lit up the night sky almost instantly, evaporating two of the attacker’s Starfighters. But as their red blimps vanished from the radar, they were replaced by hundreds of gray blimps, indicating inert asteroids being hauled behind them.

“They’re trying to ram those asteroids into us! Evasive maneuvers now!” Tarax barked.

The battleship’s engines roared to life and lurched forward, pulling it out of the oncoming path of the asteroids.

***

“Oh no, you don’t!” Daniel exclaimed as he released control of all the other Starfighters and focused his attention on his lead ship. Banking hard to the left, he dodged the stream of laser fire and switched all power to his engines. The long chain of asteroids swooshed and yanked behind him causing it to fishtail.

Using the sudden twist of inertia that would’ve killed him if he’d actually been piloting the Starfighter he shot straight towards the battleship.

Six of the battleship’s main turrets swiveled to meet him, but thanks to the chain attaching him to the long strand of asteroids, it was impossible for them to get a bead on him, as his starship flailed and twisted around at impossible G forces like a worm skewered on the end of a fishing line.

The world spun and rolled endlessly in his virtual helmet’s viewport. It took all of his concentration to make sense of where the Starfighter was currently at, but he kept his eyes open and continued to guide his fighter towards the port side of the battleship.

Then right before he slammed into it, he pulled up and released the chain that bound it to the fake asteroids.

The abrupt movement and inertia snapped the chained asteroids in a whip-like motion. They spun around, smashing into ships and shredding two enemy fighters as they slammed into the battleship, wrapping themselves around it like a giant snake.

***

Tarax flew across the command deck and slammed into the far wall as the asteroids crashed into his battleship. The massive craft was sent flipping around as the asteroids wrapped themselves around its hull.

The logic drive overwhelmed with collision data tried to spin the whole ship counterclockwise in the attempt to free itself from the entangled mess of asteroids. In turn, Tarax was sent bouncing off the roof and floors of the command deck.

“Cut logic drives now!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The ship suddenly stopped moving, and he collapsed back to the floor. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet and cradled his busted right arm, as warning alarms signaled the shield’s energy was nearly depleted. He spun around, taking stock of the situation, and noticed at once that most of the gunners were focusing their attention on the chains holding the asteroids together.

“Forget the stupid asteroids!” He barked. “They’re nothing but a distraction! Get the fighters; if one of them launches a torpedo now the damage will be unstoppable!”

There was a murmur of understanding as the command deck’s gunners focused their attention on the five remaining fighters. Within seconds, five Crimson fireballs filled the night sky.

Tarax breathed a sigh of relief as all blimps went silent. His lips curled in disgust as he glanced out the starboard viewport at one of the asteroids clinging to the ship. He didn’t know who was behind this attack, but he was going to find out, and he would personally see to their extermination.

No one raised their hand against…

***

“Now!” Steven shouted, as the circular tubes attached to some of the asteroids decoupled and unfolded, opening more dimensional doors. This time straight into the middle of the scattered armada.

He, Stephanie, Michael, and Catherine, who were each controlling two fighters, shot through the doors. They released their chains and pulled away, allowing the chained asteroids to fly on at impossible speeds.

Having had over five minutes to build up their inertia before shooting through the dimensional doors in one long chain the asteroids barreled through and slammed into frigate, cruiser, and fighter like punching straight through some and bouncing off others and as the last of the dimensional doors closed or collapsed Steven activated the hidden g*n emplacements.

***

The ship’s warning alarms blared to life once again. Hundreds of more grey dots popped up, indicating even more asteroids were appearing out of thin air and smashing through the armada like sledgehammers. Then, without warning, the grey dots blazed red. Tarax’s eyes grew to the size of saucers as he watched the one right outside the viewport unfolded, revealing an ultra-heavy laser turret.

He opened his mouth to shout an order, but it was too late. Hundreds of lasers bored into the already weakened shield of the battleship, shattering them in less than a millisecond. The turret right outside the viewport drilled a hole straight to the protective layers and eviscerated Tarax in a blink of an eye.

***

“Retreat! Retreat!” shouted a frantic voice across the coms as Michael and the others watched the now heavily outnumbered ships being systematically melted down into useless slags.

Only two frigates and one cruiser managed to pull away from the engagement as the battleship exploded into an expanding fireball.

The wounded ships limped their way back to the Starway and fled through it without so much as a single communication as they departed.

“Yeah take that Ya take that!” Daniel shouted.

“Haha!” Stephanie exclaimed. “Look at them run away, l*****g their wounds.”

Michael raised his hand to cut them off. “We’re not done yet. Gather the remaining asteroids and Steven, make sure there’s no trace of us left on that battlefield.”

“Aye aye captain.” Stephanie sang out as she sat back down and grabbed the controls of the two Starcraft she was piloting.

But as she went to move them, Daniel reached over on the screen and grabbed the control over one of them.

“Hey, that was mine!” she protested.

“‘Was’ being the opportune word.” Daniel teased back.

“Oh no, you don’t. You lost all of yours; you can’t have mine as well!” she exclaimed, taking back control of the pilfered starfighter.

Daniel immediately seized control of it once again, and a miniature power struggle ensued between the two of them as they each tried to take control of the starfighter.

“Stop, you two!” Michael scolded. “We don’t have time for this right now.”

“Fine then. Tell her to let me control. I’m the better pilot anyway!”

“No way. You can’t just have your way like that!”

“Stop both of you,” Steven exclaimed, trying to be the peacemaker. “Here Dan you use mine and leave hers alone I’ll use the drones.”

Stephanie frowned at Steven. “You shouldn’t let him get away with it; it only goads him on,” she said, as Steven switched his starship controls over to Daniel.

Daniel stuck his tongue at her and happily guided his new fighters towards the closest chain of asteroids.

She curled her lips; her upper cheek shook as she gave him the evil eye, but said nothing more.

Minor crisis averted. They all used the remaining starfighters hastily attached harpoons to gather up the fake asteroids while Steven used the drones to reclaim the remains of his technology and as standard Lionhearted protocol self-destruct anything that was not recoverable leaving no trace of their passing.

As Daniel, Catherine, and Stephanie flew their starfighters off into open space with the fake asteroids in tow, Michael took one of the remaining fighters and parked it in front of the government procession, which had been watching the entire battle from a safe distance. Once again, he began to project a giant hologram of David Kell.

“As you are the ruling government in this area, the survivors of this battle are now under your jurisdiction. I know you will save their lives and deal with them justly according to the three Great Laws.”

The hologram disappeared and Michael turned his fighter to follow after the others.

***

Fifteen minutes later, when Steven was absolutely sure there was no possible detection, the starfighters met up with another probe, and it opened a dimensional door. The starfighters flew through it with the fake asteroids in tow and back into the safety of their home asteroid field.

The drone collapsed the metal tube hoop that formed the dimensional door and began its long trek to a different location where it could be used if needed to be.

As the last Starfighter disappeared into the endless field of asteroids and away to safety, Daniel took off his helmet, stood up, and stretched in a joyous proclamation. “We did it! We saved John’s life!”

“We indeed did.” Mike took a deep breath. “But at what cost?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Daniel asked, perplexed.

“I mean, how many lives did we just take? I didn’t think of it before while we were planning this whole thing, but after watching the asteroids smashing into those ships and opened fire as they did, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Oh,” Daniel said, his enthusiasm draining away.

Catharine looked down at the floor and her hand began to shake. “You are right. I didn’t even take that into consideration. I am… I am so used to playing strategic games, I…”

Stephanie reached over from her station and took her hand. They both sat there in silence. The others stared on unseeingly until the holographic form of the AI lion suddenly appeared in their midst. “I understand your distress; all life is precious; as such, it may please you to know that in the last engagement there was only one fatal casualty. The commander Tarax U. Marlune.”

Michael’s head snapped up towards the lion; his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “How is that possible...? I mean, the asteroids crashing alone should… Wait, how do you know this?”

Alf, the AI lion, sat back on his haunches on an invisible floor. “I know this because the asteroids are equipped with excellent sensors. As for how this is possible, most of the ships were fully automated with crews only inside their command decks, which you well know are greatly reinforced. It takes lasers at pinpoint focus and almost point-blank range to break through such defenses. Lionhearted protocol states that all men should receive a fair trial. Thus, I successfully endeavored to minimize casualties when opening fire. However, Marlune’s war crime of murdering his own men in cold blood right in front of us, according to the laws, denied him such niceties. So I personally saw to his elimination.”

“Wait, you did what?” Stephanie exclaimed.

“I used his death and the subsequent destruction of each of the electronic control stations to force the command crew to abandon ship before the battleship exploded. While I detect distress in your voice over this fact, it implores me to point out that according to my calculations, without the decommissioning of the commander, all the lives on the battleship may have had very well been lost.”

Stephanie turned towards Steven; he quickly brought up a screen and pushed an emergency pause feature he had installed on the AI.

The lion’s hologram rippled, then froze in place.

Daniel whistled, “Wow, remind me never to get on that thing’s bad side. It might very well calculate me as an acceptable loss and kill me!”

His half-baked joke didn’t go over well with the others. They glared at him.

“Don’t worry,” Steven quickly said, throwing up his hands. “I’ve added tons of subroutines to make sure something like that doesn’t happen.”

The room once again fell into silence, until Daniel jumped down from his station onto the curved floor of the command deck. “Well, if it means saving John’s life and hundreds of others, I’m kind of okay with taking partial responsibility for Marloon’s death.”

“It’s Marlune, and I am not sure I am,” Michael answered.

One of Steven’s screens beeped a warning, indicating that the ship needed its AI to continue functioning without errors. With a heavy sigh, Steven reached up and un-paused Alf.

The holographic lion rippled as he came back online and looked around at them as if expecting them to respond to his earlier comment. When no one said anything, it disappeared to its normal functions, oblivious to the fact of it being paused.

Daniel leaned his back against the shock absorbent shaft that supported his station. “So, what happens now?”

“Huh?” Steven asked, not understanding the question.

“Well, we obliterated half an armada. That’s got to mean something, right?”

Catherine put her hands over her eyes and leaned back into her seat. “Yeah, I’ve been mulling that over. I would think a group like ULIX would throw their weight around and demand Almandine to give them the perpetrators of such an act.”

They all turned to her in alarm.

“But the Almandine government can’t! I mean I made sure they can’t find us!” Steven proclaimed with absolute assurance.

“I know. But this will really put them in a hard spot, for two reasons.” She said.

“What are those?” Daniel asked.

Catherine sat up. “Well, for one, they can’t find us, and two, I doubt they really want to find us.”

“What makes you say that?” Stephanie asked this time.

“We just wiped out a battleship with only sixteen fighters and some defensive g*n emplacements. That’s something completely unheard of in the last one hundred years, and the Lionhearted were quite well known for being able to accomplish such feats continuously. The Almandians don’t know who we are, but they aren’t stupid. They won’t try to pick a fight with a group calling themselves the Lionhearted and showing the same capabilities unless they absolutely have to. As such, I hope they would rather deal with the wounded ULIX then try to find us. At least that’s what I’m counting on, or I would’ve brought this up earlier.”

Michael nodded at her. “Well, let’s hope you’re right.”

“Doesn’t matter even if they did try to find us they couldn’t. I’ve hacked their R&D department quite a few times, and their technologies are a few decades behind everything we deployed to hide any trace of us.” Steven reassured.

Daniel scratched the back of his head. “Actually guys, this may sound a bit weird, but if this is anything like a few of the games I’ve played, I believe the ULIX group will be no more by the end of the week.”

Stephanie frowned at him and sighed as she crossed her arms. “This is not a game; this is real life!”

“I know I know…” Daniel said throwing up his hands defensively. “But even still, as I think about it I think their time has come to an end.”

“Why do you say that?” Michael asked.

“Because we just created a power vacuum. If real life were anything like the games I played, the other crime lords are bound to see this opening and take advantage of it so they can add this region to their money pot.”

Stephanie glared at him. “That’s ridiculous! You need to get your head out of those games and start doing something more productive with your life.”

“It is productive. I’ve made thousands from my winnings, even more than what Catherine brings in from her Art.” Daniel protested defensively.

Stephanie rolled her eyes and changed her attention to Catherine. “How do you live with your husband playing games all day? If he were mine I’d force him to get a real job!”

Catherine smiled and shrugged.

***

The next morning everyone was more or less lazing around the game room, taking a break from the strenuous few days of nonstop planning when Steven ran in. “You guys won’t believe this five hours ago just ten hours since our flight what remained of the Ships that escaped were ambushed at the end of a star way and completely obliterated by an unknown force,” Stevens excitement faded and he add, “Sadly there was a lot of traffic, and there were quite a few civilian casualties.”

Daniel paused the game he was playing and jumped to his feet. “Ha, sounds like I was right. This region will now be the center of a crime war! Everyone will battle for its control.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “You and your games. It was probably just the government trying to get rid of a thorn in their side or some such.”

Michael shook his head. “No. if that had been the case, there wouldn’t have been any civilian casualties or very little at least.”

“Dan may be right. We have destabilized the delicate balance of power in this sector.” Catherine stated.

Michael rested his face in his hands. “If you’re right and a crime war did break out, how many more civilians would be injured or killed in it? We may have saved John’s life and his colleagues, but it seems our actions may have very well put thousands more in danger now.”

After a moment, he looked up at Daniel. “How in the world did I let you talk us into this?”

“Me? I didn’t do this!” Daniel protested.

“He’s right,” Stephanie said. “We all made this choice, and we all share the blame.”

The room lapsed into silence.

“Well then,” Daniel said, pulling himself up straight, crossing his arms. “Are we going to stand by and watch it? Or are we going to make it clear that the Lionhearted won’t allow such a thing to happen!”