THE KOSTROMA SAGA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 50 – THE BATTLE OF ROSS 128

 

07:50 (Earth Universal Time)

Monday, December 27, 2320

Bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA

At the edge of the Ross 128 System

‘’We just got a radio message from Tina, Dana: her yacht has just cleared the outer edge of the system’s asteroid belt. Her message included the codeword ‘Trojan’.’’

‘’Thank you, Amin.’’ replied Dana ‘DD’ Durning from the command chair on the bridge of the KOSTROMA. Dana’s normal function was as the ship’s navigator but she also had the informal position of first officer, so she was in command of the KOSTROMA during Tina’s absence. As for her normal navigator’s station, it was presently manned by Captain Shanandar, who had been a formal crewmember and officer aboard the ship for the last three years or so. Dana then sat back straight in her command chair as her body tensed up. A number of different codewords which would mean nothing to the Drazt had been agreed to before her departure for Ross 128b, each covering a possible end scenario. As for the codeword ‘Trojan’, it meant that Tina was being followed by the Drazt and that an attack against the KOSTROMA was a possibility. Thankfully, she and her crew still had some time available to prepare for anything. They also had a few hidden assets which were now going to prove very useful.

‘’Patricia, what is the latest data sent via directional maser by our stealth probes hidden within the asteroid belt?’’

Patricia O’Neil, a beautiful, 31-years-old redhead with green eyes who was presently manning one of the sensors and communications stations of the bridge, answered her after a quick review of the data on her screens.

‘’Our probes have detected and triangulated via passive means a lone Drazt ship following Tina’s yacht from a distance of 2.3 light-seconds. I believe it to be acting simply as an escort to Tina’s yacht. If there are any other Drazt ships in the region, they are still too far for passive detection.’’

‘’Very well! We will still take the maximum precautions possible. Spirit, activate all our internal and external defense systems. Any Drazt entering this ship will be

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considered a hostile and will be neutralized on sight, without warning. Be prepared to engage multiple targets at maximum range.’’

‘’Activating all our internal and external defense systems now.’’ replied on the intercom the soft female voice of the KOSTROMA’s central artificial intelligence computer. Dana felt better on hearing that: Spirit had proved many times in the past to be an important key to the defense of the KOSTROMA against various forms of attack, being both extremely fast to react to new or unexpected threats and being able to take judicious tactical decisions of its own while handling the targeting of multiple targets. Next, Dana raised a plate covering a red button on one of her command chair’s armrests and pushed the button, starting a loud alarm blare across the ship.

‘’Attention to all crewmembers! Go to battle stations! Close all the airtight doors and hatches and switch to local power and life support systems. All non-combat crew and family members are to don their emergency spacesuits and to withdraw to the main cafeterias in the ship’s armored central core section.’’

Dana then looked around her and shouted another order.

‘’BRIDGE CREW, START PUTTING ON YOUR SPACESUITS, HALF A PAIR AT A TIME. LEAVE YOUR VISORS OPENED ONCE YOU ARE SUITED UP BUT BE READY TO SEAL THEM ON MY COMMAND OR IF THE BRIDGE DEPRESSURIZES.’’ Dana herself waited a couple of minutes before going to put on her own spacesuit, kept close at hand in a locker room directly below her bridge platform. Once suited up, she sat back in her command chair and looked down at Patricia O’Neil, whose work station was situated on the bridge platform immediately down from the command platform.

‘’Patricia, how far from us is Tina’s yacht?’’

‘’She is now about 1.1 light-seconds8 from us and coasting along at 140,000 kilometers per hour.’’

‘’Damn! I wish that her second-hand yacht would have been a bit faster than that. Let’s…’’

That was when Amin Jamilian, manning a second sensors station next to Patrica’s station, spoke up out loud in alarm.

‘’Dana, our stealth probes are now starting to detect a large group of unidentified ships following far behind the escort Drazt cruiser.’’

‘’How many ships are there?’’

8 One light-second is equal to roughly 300,000 kilometers.

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‘’Uh, more ships keep being detected, but there are already 32 contacts located some three light seconds behind the Drazt escort cruiser.’’

‘’SHIT! IT’S A TRAP! Patricia, send the following message to Tina via directional maser: Roadrunner, Roadrunner! Frida, engage our gravity sails at maximum power and rush towards Tina’s yacht: we must recuperate her before those Drazt ships could rush in and attack us.’’

‘’Going to full gravity sails acceleration.’’ replied Frida Skarsgard, the first pilot of the KOSTROMA. The giant cargo ship, having been emptied of cargo for this risky mission, bolted forward at an acceleration of 2.8 Gs, a stunning performance without using its main thermonuclear drive for such a huge ship. However, Dana knew that Drazt ships could accelerate much faster even: this race could become a very close one indeed.

08:05 (Earth Universal Time)

Bridge of the TARASK

‘’Shipmaster, the Human craft has just lit up its thermonuclear engines and is accelerating away from us.’’

At first, that news did not alarm Dozna Wiss: Tina Forster could simply have decided to increase her speed once out of the dense asteroid belt. Still, she gave an order to one of her bridge officers.

‘’Communicator, send the following to the fleet flagship: Forster’s yacht has lit up its main drive and is accelerating away.’’

‘’Aye, Shipmaster!’’

The male officer was still transmitting that message when a sensors operator spoke up urgently.

‘’Shipmaster, we are now detecting at the edge of our radar range a ship on approach. It is accelerating towards us and the yacht.’’

‘’Forster’s waiting ship.’’ said to herself Dozna. ‘’Can you identify it, Sensors Officer?’’

‘’Not yet, Shipmaster, but it is a big one, judging from its radar echo.’’

‘’Damn, that must be Forster’s KOSTROMA. I suppose that we should have expected that. Communicator, alert the flagship about this approaching vessel. Pilot, cut our speed down and adopt a holding position.’’

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‘’Yes, Shipmaster!’’

Somehow, that order made Dozna feel a bit better about herself: her orders had specified that she had to stay away from the incoming battle, so that she could act as a relay ship and observe the battle, in case things soured up. At least, this would allow her to avoid participating into what she considered as pure dishonor for the Drazt race.

08:08 (Earth Universal Time)

Bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA

‘’Dana, the Drazt fleet is now accelerating at a rate of 21 Gs and is about to overrun the lone Drazt escort ship.’’

‘’Is that escort ship accelerating as well?’’

‘’Negative! In fact, it is slowing down quickly. It seems to be taking a rearguard position.’’

‘’Then mark it as to be avoided by our weapons. How far is Tina’s yacht from us now?’’

‘’It is now some 0.9 light-seconds from us, Dana. This is going to be a tight race indeed.’’

‘’The hell with this! Those Drazt asked for it! LAUNCH AND DEPLOY OUR ELECTRONIC DECOYS AND ACTIVATE THEM AT FULL POWER IN TEN SECONDS. ONCE OUR DECOYS WILL BE EMITTING, FIRE ONE FULL MISSILE SALVO AT THAT APPROACHING DRAZT FLEET. SET THEIR WARHEADS TO MAXIMUM YIELD AND PROXIMITY DETONATION.’’

Renée D’Argenteuil, who was manning the bridge’s weapons master station, couldn’t help glance briefly at Dana on hearing her order: the firepower that was going to be unleashed was downright terrifying. Still, her fingers played on her command console’s keyboard and various buttons.

‘’Missile warhead yield and detonators set! Targeting plan initiated and missiles ready for immediate launch.’’

As Renée spoke, Ingrid Holtz, manning one of the sensors stations, was launching a total of twelve compact but powerful stealth jamming emitters, which then dispersed ahead of the KOSTROMA, forming a loose but carefully calculated pattern in Space. Then, on command, the emitters started sending powerful directional multispectral jamming noises towards the approaching Drazt fleet. Two seconds after that, a total of

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180 heavy missiles, each some fourteen meters-long and with a diameter of 1.6 meters, rocketed out of their box launchers, located in the forward cones of the six giant landing leg pods of the KOSTROMA. After boosting out of their launchers via simple but reliable solid propellant rocket engines, these missiles, of a recent design far superior to their predecessors, switched after a second to anti-matter rocket engines derived from Koorivar ship engines. With only fuel, a guidance package and a warhead to accelerate, the huge thrust from the mutual annihilation of thin streams of vaporized matter and anti-matter injected in their magnetic containment burning chambers accelerated the missiles at a fantastic rate of 56 Gs. Guided by an array of both active and passive sensors and loaded with prepared fire commands, the 180 missiles veered as one towards the approaching Drazt fleet, speeding up at a rate even Drazt ships could not approach, while adopting erratic zigzag trajectories meant to make them more difficult to avoid.

08:10 (Earth Universal Time)

Bridge of the ADMIRAL DRAX (flagship of the Drazt Navy)

‘’Grand Admiral, our sensors screens just filled with tens of thousands of false radar and thermal echoes. We can’t pinpoint the Human ship or the yacht anymore through all that noise.’’

Tok Tharn’s jaws tightened in irritation at those words: he had expected the Human ship to prove to be a tough target, in view of the Humans’ long experience at war. In contrast, the Drazts’ last experience of war had been centuries ago and had not involved space battles, only ground fighting on a low scale. However, that KOSTROMA seemed to have even more tricks in its bag than he had expected.

‘’Keep pushing the fleet forward at maximum acceleration: once close enough, no amount of jamming will be able to hide that damn KOSTROMA.’’ His fleet operations officer snapped his head to give him a cautionary look.

‘’We will still have to decelerate sharply once near the KOSTROMA, Grand Admiral, so that our assault barges could be launched. That will be a very risky phase of our attack and we still know next to nothing about the weaponry of the KOSTROMA.’’

‘’We know that only their lasers could penetrate our force shields. Seizing this KOSTROMA and its interstellar drive is well worth taking some risks, Operations Master. Make sure that our troops are ready for action and that our assault barges are ready to be launched quickly on my command.’’

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‘’Yes, Grand Admiral!’’ replied the operations officer, hiding his misgivings.

If anything, the Human jamming kept getting worse, contrary to Tharn’s hope. Then, one sensors officer yelled a nearly panicky warning.

‘’MULTIPLE MISSILES APPROACHING FAST!’’

‘’IGNORE THEM! OUR FORCE SHIELDS CAN HANDLE THE HUMANS’ WARHEADS.’’

Tharn knew from studying the extensive data banks of intercepted Human signals that his enemy used either chemical explosives, nuclear devices or purely kinetic warheads in their missile designs. Drazt force shields could easily handle chemical explosive and kinetic warheads, while they could soak up small nuclear warheads typical of ship missiles, so he kept a façade of assurance as nearly 200 missiles rushed at his fleet of 42 cruisers. Seeing that each Drazt ship was going to face an average of three missiles each, the weapons officer of the flagship nervously looked at Tharn: that officer, like all the crewmembers of the fleet, never had to face hostile fire before.

‘’Grand Admiral, those missiles are now zigzagging in unpredictable random patterns and will be very difficult to shoot down. I counsel that we use our disintegrator batteries in order to at least cut down on their number.’’

‘’Very well, Weapons Master. Start engaging those missiles now.’’

‘’Yes, Grand Admiral!’’

The lack of war experience of the Drazt then again played against them. Not having to engage in space combat for centuries, the standard Drazt space patrol cruiser’s armament had been kept to a mere four medium disintegrator cannons mounted in 3-axis turrets, enough to cover every sector around the cruiser while leaving more space and power for the propulsion systems and shield generators. Any Human admiral or warship captain would have laughed at such a puny armament for cruisers with a diameter of 260 meters and a height of 200 meters and would have told the ship designers to return to their drawing boards. With the missiles still accelerating at a rate of 56 Gs and zigzagging wildly, the few Drazt disintegrator cannons which could fire in their direction were completely overwhelmed, managing to hit and destroy only a mere tenth of the missiles. Then, the remaining 163 missiles reached the Drazt fleet, either impacting directly against the frontal shields of the cruisers or passing in close proximity to them. In each case, the missile warheads detonated in huge balls of exploding plasma. The problem for the Drazt was that those warheads were no mere chemical

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explosive or low nuclear yield ones. Rather, they were anti-matter warheads with selectable yields between fifteen and ninety megatons. In this case, they all had been set to their maximum yields of ninety megatons. Those cruisers hit directly by a missile saw their protective force shield generators buckle and fail at once against such powerful blows, with the cruisers utterly destroyed by gigantic anti-matter blasts. Those cruisers who suffered multiple near detonations along their flanks survived, but with their force shield generators overloading and shutting down, becoming irremediably inoperable. Their outer hulls also suffered serious damage or were even breached, causing catastrophic compartment decompressions. In the space of only a few seconds, 23 Drazt cruisers ceased to exist, while another ten were rendered next to useless for combat. The Drazt flagship, situated at the rear of the formation, was lucky enough to escape the missile swarm unscathed, but a shocked Grand Admiral Tharn then found himself left with only nine ships still combat capable, including his flagship, and with the intimidating KOSTROMA still approaching.

Way behind the now decimated Drazt fleet, Dozna Wiss and her crew could only watch with horror the blinding show made by dozens of anti-matter warheads detonating into huge balls of plasma among the fleet of cruisers.

‘’By the stars, this is nothing but a pure massacre! Sensors Officer, how many of our ships are still intact?’’

‘’Uh, one moment, Shipmaster.’’ replied the poor officer, near panic. ‘’I now read nineteen remaining radar echoes, but the identification signals of some of them aren’t detectable anymore. Those cruisers may have been significantly damaged by near blasts.’’

‘’Talking of blasts, how could the Humans possess such powerful warheads? Sciences Officer, can you answer that question for me?’’

‘’Give me a moment to analyze the spectral signature of those explosions, Shipmaster.’’

A few seconds later, the sciences officer looked back at Dozna, shock on his face.

‘’Shipmaster, the radiation signature of those blasts corresponds to that of matter/anti-matter explosions, massive ones.’’

‘’Anti-matter warheads?’’ said Dozna, horrified. ‘’How could Humans

manufacture so much anti-matter? We ourselves can only produce infinitesimal quantities and at the cost of a huge energy consumption.’’

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‘’I don’t know, Shipmaster. However, the Humans seem to have a significant advance over us in that domain.’’

‘’Damn! In what other domains could they also be in advance over us?’’ Dozna asked herself in a low voice.

On the ADMIRAL DRAX, Grand Admiral Tharn, temporarily overwhelmed by the disaster that had struck his fleet, then reacted in a way many Human military leader of the past with more aristocratic rank than military competence had reacted to setbacks: he decided to push on at all cost.

‘’TO ALL OUR SHIPS: LAUNCH OUR ASSAULT BOATS AND COVER THEM WITH DISINTEGRATOR FIRE AS SOON AS THEY ARE WITHIN EFFECTIVE RANGE.’’

The last part of his order was necessitated by the fact that, while devastating in their effects, disintegrator weapons had energy beams that gradually lost their focus with distance. In the case of infantry weapons, meant to be used at ranges of a few hundred meters at the most, that factor was negligible. However, as ship weapons, disintegrator cannons saw their destructive power diminish considerably within mere hundreds of kilometers, to the point where they could only damage ships hulls to depths of only a few millimeters, enough to still damage seriously or destroy a small craft but wholly insufficient to seriously worry a behemoth like the KOSTROMA. In contrast, the huge gigawatt-class laser batteries of the giant cargo ship, which were still without equal even within the Solar System, could be used effectively over tens of thousands of kilometers, something Dana Durning started using to good effect.

08:11 (Earth Universal Time)

Bridge of the Drazt patrol cruiser SHAKRA

‘’Our last assault barge has now been launched and is on its way to the KOSTROMA. Our barges should get to it nearly at the same time as the fleeing Human yacht, Shipmaster.’’

‘’Let’s hope that our troops will be able to board that damn Human ship and capture it quickly.’’ replied the shipmaster, who nearly added ‘before we are all dead’. He suddenly saw on his external viewing screens big showers of sparks explode on two different parts of his cruiser’s outer hull.

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‘’What the…’’

Before he could finish his sentence, one of two 1.2-gigawatt laser beams, tuned to a frequency invisible to the naked eye, burned through the cruiser all the way to the bridge section, while the other beam started melting the main drive generator of the ship. The intrusion of the laser beam inside the bridge section was signaled by a sudden explosion of sparks along one bulkhead, with one Drazt bridge officer having his whole head incinerated by the invisible beam. That laser beam then continued dancing around the bridge for a second, killing the shipmaster and four more of his crewmembers in the process before burning its way out of the hull. The surviving crewmembers of the patrol cruiser then had to battle multiple explosive decompressions, with many Drazt being ripped to pieces as they were sucked out of the ship through the jagged edges of the perforated hull. What was left of the SHAKRA then started drifting through space, now turned into a near lifeless hulk.

On the ADMIRAL DRAX, Grand Admiral Tharn could only watch as the cruiser positioned ahead of his flagship was shred to ribbons by laser fire. Then, a second cruiser’s hull started producing explosions of sparks. The terrified fleet operations officer on the flagship’s bridge couldn’t stand it anymore and nearly yelled at Tharn.

‘’ADMIRAL, WE HAVE TO WITHDRAW NOW, BEFORE WE LOSE ALL OF OUR SHIPS!’’

‘’SHUT UP, YOU COWARD! OUR ASSAULT BARGES ARE NOW ABOUT TO GET TO THE KOSTROMA. THAT SHIP WILL SOON BE OURS. TO ALL SHIPS, OPEN MAXIMUM FIRE NOW!’’

Unfortunately for him, the words ‘all ships’ now meant only six surviving and combat effective cruisers. That number went down to three within two seconds, when a deluge of concentrated disintegrator cannon fire erupted out of the KOSTROMA.

‘’GRAND ADMIRAL, THE KOSTROMA IS APPARENTLY ARMED WITH OVER FIFTY MEDIUM DISINTEGRATOR CANNONS!’’ shouted a sensors officer. ‘’OUR ASSAULT BARGES ARE BEING DECIMATED!’’

‘’CONTINUE THE ASSAULT AT ALL COST! WE MUST TAKE THAT

KOSTROMA!’’

The sensors officer swallowed the words he had for his grand admiral but then saw on his optical telescope the muzzle of a gigantic sort of cannon on the KOSTROMA which was now directly pointing at the flagship.

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‘’Oh shit!’’ the officer had time to say before the projectile fired by one of the four 200-megawatt, 150-meters-long electro-magnetic rail guns of the KOSTROMA hit the flagship head-on, its anti-matter warhead combining with its massive kinetic energy to overwhelm the ship’s force shield generators and vaporize the ADMIRAL DRAX.

08:12 (Earth Universal Time)

Cockpit of Drazt Assault Barge # 245

800 meters from the KOSTROMA

Any sane and honest combat-experienced soldier would tell you that about everybody experiencing for the first time hostile fire in combat is bound to freeze from sheer terror during at least the first seconds of such an awful experience, with some never really recovering completely from it afterwards. In this case, the Drazt Navy crewmembers and combat troopers in Assault Barge # 245 were being served a royal portion of fear as they faced a thick barrage of blue disintegrator cannon beams. The pilot of the barge then did about the only thing that could save him and his craft.

‘’I’M GOING TO FOLLOW IN THAT HUMAN CRAFT ABOUT TO ENTER THAT AIRLOCK. WITH SOME LUCK, THEY WON’T DARE SHOOT AT US IN FEAR OF HITTING THEIR OWN CRAFT.’’

‘’SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN!’’ replied between clenched teeth his copilot, who was hyperventilating because of fear.

‘’EMBARKED TROOPERS, BE READY TO JUMP OUT: WE ARE ABOUT TO ENTER THE ENEMY SHIP.’’ shouted the pilot in his intercom as he saw the nearest other assault barge disappear in a blue flash of light, hit by the crossfire from five disintegrator cannons firing furiously. Controlling as best he could his trajectory and speed, the barge pilot managed to follow the Human yacht into the opened craft airlock on one side of the KOSTROMA’s hull and actually rear-ended it in the process, projecting it violently against the aft bulkhead of the airlock just as the armored outer doors were starting to close behind it. The shock of the collision left the 45 Drazt inside the assault barge temporarily stunned and disoriented, until the pilot regained enough of his senses to shout in his intercom.

‘’TROOPERS, JUMP OUT NOW AND PROCEED INSIDE THE ENEMY SHIP.’’ He then twisted his head to look at his cockpit crewmembers.

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‘’Seal your spacesuits and make sure that you have a weapon with you, then evacuate the craft. I’m afraid that our poor barge is now a goner.’’ Following his own directive, Droz Mak first checked that he still had his disintegrator pistol in his belt holster before undoing his seat harness and looking at his female copilot.

‘’Follow me, Vara!’’

Most of the forty troopers carried by the spherical-shaped assault barge were already out of the craft when Droz and Vara jumped down from the left side cockpit access door, landing on the steel deck of the airlock. Droz was then able to see that the door between the inner and outer airlocks had been left opened to permit a faster landing by the Human yacht, something that had turned out to Droz’ benefit, as it had let both the yacht and the assault barge able to fit into the still limited volume of the craft airlock system. However, the armored outer doors of the airlock were now firmly closed, which meant that the Drazt had no way to go but further inside. Seeing the commander of the troopers near what appeared to be the door of an inner personnel airlock situated at the deeper end of the craft airlock, Droz went to join him, crouching against a bulkhead.

‘’So, what’s the plan for the assault, Group Master?’’

The big Drazt trooper gave him a nearly disgusted look in response.

‘’The plan? What plan? We have no idea about the internal configuration of this ship, which is ten times bigger than anything I have seen before, on top of having being built by aliens we know little about. For all we know, we could run inside and head straight to their sewage plant rather than to their engine control room.’’

‘’You mean that this assault was doomed from the start?’’ asked the young Drazt pilot, making the more mature trooper officer sneer in disdain.

‘’You only figured that out now, Barge Master? I could have said so out loud before but the consequences for me would not have been pretty.’’

‘’So, what do we do now?’’

‘’How about quietly surrendering, gentlemen?’’ said in Drazt language a female human voice that came from an overhead speaker. The trooper officer was pricked by those words and pointed his disintegrator rifle at one of the steel walls of the airlock while shouting an order to his soldiers.

‘’LIKE FUCK WE ARE, HUMANS! BE READY TO FOLLOW ME INSIDE, TROOPERS: I’M GOING TO BLAST A HOLE THROUGH THAT BULKHEAD.’’

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The trooper officer then followed his words with action, firing a long burst of disintegrator energy and creating a large hole with red-hot edges in the bulkhead. Since the airlock system had been pressurized after their entry, that hole did not create some explosive decompression, to Droz’ relief. The forty Drazt troopers then rushed inside the giant ship while screaming ferociously, only to be greeted by dense, murderous disintegrator fire coming from multiple points of the hangar situated beyond the airlock. Droz and Vara, following behind the troopers, saw a good dozen of them being hit by disintegrator beams and crumbling to the deck, gaping holes in their assault armors or even with their heads vaporized. In response, the troopers fired back with the energy of despair, managing to take out a few of what appeared to be remotely-controlled internal defensive turrets. Blasting away the remaining turrets cost another ten troopers, with the surviving Drazt taking cover behind piled crates. As the Group Master was running towards what looked like a central circulation column and was about to get to a steel door, a white jet of vapor suddenly blew out of a seemingly inoffensive-looking box fixed to the wall, enveloping the officer. Droz could only watch with incomprehension at first as the group master fell like a log on the deck, frozen stiff. Then Droz understood what had happened.

‘’WATCH THOSE WALL BOXES, TROOPERS: THEY CONTAIN GUNS THAT SPRAY CRYOGENIC VAPORS WHICH WILL FREEZE YOU SOLID.’’

‘’Those sneaky Human bastards!’’ exclaimed a trooper before disintegrating that box. He then ran to his officer and examined him quickly.

‘’He still has a regular pulse, but he is indeed frozen stiff.’’ Before Droz could say something about that, the same female human voice resonated again around the hangar.

‘’Warning! This is your last chance to surrender before I unlock our internal defensive batteries into free-fire mode. You have ten seconds to either surrender or die.’’

‘’How long are ten human seconds?’’ asked a young Drazt trooper, prompting a spontaneous answer from Vara, the barge’s copilot.

‘’Most probably not long enough for us. This is hopeless! From what I saw while still outside in space, we are probably the only assault barge that was able to make it all the way to this ship.’’

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‘’I concur!’’ said Droz before looking at the seventeen surviving troopers. ‘’It’s your choice, guys: you surrender or you continue fighting and will die, probably all for nothing judging from the catastrophic situation of our fleet. Decide quickly!’’ The Squad Master who had destroyed the cryogenic gun hesitated for a moment, then swore in disgust before putting down his disintegrator rifle, soon imitated by the rest of the troopers and by the crewmembers of the barge.

‘’WE SURRENDER!’’ shouted out Droz for good measure. Less than a minute later, six Humans armed with disintegrator rifles quite similar to the weapons of the Drazt appeared, coming from three different directions and surrounding the Drazt.

‘’HANDS UP AND KEEP THEM THERE!’’ shouted a Human in English, with his words translated at once in Drazt by the translation unit he carried. The Drazt obeyed and let the Humans take their weapons away, then were searched one by one in a manner Droz found quite professional. He then remembered that the Humans had a reputation for being hardened and experienced warmongers, something that this situation seemed to prove. To the surprise of the Drazt, a lone female Human came out of the same craft airlock from which they had broken out, prompting an exclamation from a trooper.

‘’Fuck! Where is this female coming from?’’

The female in question grinned in response.

‘’Your barge sodomized my poor yacht, remember? I am Fleet Captain Tina Forster and you are now prisoners of war. Don’t worry: we won’t torture or brutalize you. That’s not our style. Behave and you will be treated well and with respect.’’ She then turned towards one of the male Humans holding guns.

‘’Ahmed, please bring those Drazt to the detention cells. Once there, have them remove their spacesuits and search them thoroughly. Get some extra guards right now to help you.’’

‘’Yes, Captain!’’

Before Ahmed Jibril could form up the prisoners into a double file, Tina nodded to the Drazts, her expression most serious.

‘’I must salute your courage and resolve for having been able to push this far and get inside my ship. Know that I will do my best to return you as soon as possible to your home planet. Alright, Ahmed: you can move them now.’’

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09:06 (Earth Universal Time)

Bridge of the Drazt patrol cruiser TARASK

Dozna Wiss was nearly catatonic in her command chair as she reviewed what could only be called an epic disaster for the Drazt Empire. None of the 42 ships which had composed the assault fleet had survived the battle, none! The only thing she could do now was to keep her position, her ship being the only one able to even attempt to block the KOSTROMA from going to Kadosh and devastate the planet with its terrifying anti-matter weapons. As a result of what could more accurately be described as a one-sided massacre, the Drazt Navy was now left with a grand total of six patrol cruisers, including the TARASK. If that battle had confirmed something, it was that Humans were truly masters of warfare. Her attention was then attracted by a strangled call from her communicator.

‘’Shipmaster, I have a video call for you…from the KOSTROMA.’’ That actually did not surprise Dozna much, not after seeing the kind of person Tina Forster was. Still, she looked coldly at her screen as the communicator transferred the video link to her command chair. As expected, the face of Tina Forster appeared on the screen. However, she was not gloating or triumphant. Rather, her expression was that of deep regret.

‘’Shipmaster Wiss, let me say first that I didn’t want that battle to happen. I was fully ready to peacefully go back to Earth, then to return in three weeks with a diplomatic party. However, the treacherous attack by your fleet gave my ship no other choice but to defend itself. I regret the deaths of so many Drazt, but those deaths are on your government, not on me.’’

‘’What do you want exactly, Captain Forster?’’ said brusquely Dozna.

‘’What I want is to tell you that my ship is about to leave your system and that you will then be free to start rescue operations around the battle zone. If you agree to send a lone barge to my ship right now, I will also let you recuperate the 22 brave Drazt soldiers who managed to enter my ship and survived the following fight inside it.’’ Dozna only had to think for a second before nodding her head at that.

‘’Very well! A barge will soon leave my ship to meet with your KOSTROMA. Anything else?’’

‘’Yes! Tell your government that, despite its act of treachery, I have no intention to attack Kadosh in response, even though this was nothing short of an act of war. I will

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simply return to the Solar System and counsel my government to place the Ross 128 System under quarantine. If you ever develop a star drive of your own, then don’t approach the Solar System, on pain of being fired upon without warning. Believe me that I deeply regret such an outcome and that I fervently wish that we could have avoided this. I will now wait for your barge, so that I could offload my prisoners of war. Fleet Captain Forster, out!’’

Dozna stared at the now blank screen for long seconds, then looked at her operations officer.

‘’Operations Master, send a barge to the KOSTROMA, to collect 22 Drazts who have been taken prisoners there. Tell the crew of the barge to keep calm and to avoid any provocations. Then we will commence search and rescue operations to find and save as many of our surviving people as we will be able to find in the debris field.’’

‘’Yes, Shipmaster!’’

19:34 (Drakan City Time)

Wednesday, December 29, 2320 (Earth calendar) Apartment of the Doz family, Vesna District

Drakan City, Kadosh (Ross 128b)

Lem Doz had just finished eating a meager supper with his wife Zar and little daughter Riza and was collecting the dirty dishes so that he could wash them when someone rang their door buzzer.

‘’Were you expecting someone, Lem?’’ asked Zar, who had Riza in her arms.

‘’Uh, no! Let me go see who this is.’’

Walking to the door and looking first at the display screen of the camera watching the outside of his door, Lem was not a little surprised and also worried to see that two uniformed members of the Navy, one a group master, were standing in front of it. Bracing himself for any possible scenario, Lem opened his door and looked into the eyes of the group master.

‘’Yes! What could I do for you, Group Master?’’

‘’Are you Lem Doz, ex-shipmaster of the cruiser MURKAN?’’

‘’Yes, I am. What is it?’’

In response, the officer presented a sealed paper envelope to Lem while speaking in a very official tone.

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‘’Shipmaster Lem Doz, you are hereby reinstated back into the Navy at your old rank. Know that the verdict of the court-martial that you were subjected to has now been erased from your personnel file.’’

At first, Lem couldn’t believe that this was happening and fixed the letter now in his hand for long seconds. He finally looked back up at the officer.

‘’I don’t understand, Group Master. What happened to cause your visit here?’’

‘’I can’t talk about such details here, Shipmaster Doz. Suffice to say that the Navy has now an acute personnel shortage crisis. You are expected to report to Navy Headquarters tomorrow morning and to present yourself to Division Master Irkan, the head of the personnel services. Do you still have your old shipmaster’s uniform?’’

‘’Yes, I do!’’

‘’Then wear it tomorrow morning. Have a good evening, Shipmaster Doz.’’ The group master and his accompanying armed escort then turned away and went to the nearest bank of elevators. After watching them leave, Lem closed back the door of his apartment, then broke into tears, unable to believe his new good fortune.