BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 66
 

The entire crew elected to remain on the Ascendant Angel even after the information that Alistair Gordon delivered, their resolve firm and unshakable. Baxter had seemed the most shocked by the information and had been on the verge of leaving but Sabine’s refusal to leave the others had steeled the panda’s choice.

  “Well…nuts. I’ll stay. I’ve spent too much time crawling around the ship making sure everything’s in top notch shape to run away now,” Baxter quipped, earning a hug and kiss from Odette. “I don’t guess it’s any more dangerous than if I was on another ship, and this one has a lot more in the way of protection. So, seeing as how I’m new at this, what do we do now? Just wait, or what?”

  “Issue a challenge,” Olin said from where he and Sonja sat near the serving bar to the galley, looking out over the others gathered on the rec deck. “I’ve been listening to all of you talk about the Van Connor thing, and I’ve been reading up on Roric Ganlin. The guy’s a serious egomaniac. I think if you issued a challenge he’d come looking for you. I don’t think he can do otherwise. His pride won’t let him ignore something like that. Just like it won’t let him let you go.”

  Randal gave the other male a lopsided grin. “You know, you might have something there.” His expression fell slightly and he looked at Elias. “So, who was it that immolated his self and the rest of his staff back at their base?”

  The white fox shrugged. “A lieutenant or some other fanatical underling,” he offered. “You know, one of the things that always bothered me about what happened at the end was that I never looked Ganlin in the eyes. Brada made sure that I saw him when he killed himself before scuttling the Shiva. He and Roric were of the same ilk. He wanted me to see that his death was by his own hand and that he was denying me the kill. I think that’s why that moment, at the end, when they set off the incendiary device has always bothered me.”

  “Further proof they’re insane,” Lena added from where she and Sabine lounged with their wolf. “But I think Olin’s got the right idea. Ganlin’s pride won’t let him walk away from you dropping a challenge. The only way you could make it worse would be to slap him while scent marking his boot.”

  Sonja pulled away from her lover and rested her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands while a furrow formed between her brows. “But how do we get the challenge out so that he sees it? He’ll think it’s a trap and stay away. Then we’ll be right back in the same place we are now, wondering when he’s going to try and hit us.”

  Elias looked at his wife and an idea struck him. His grin was almost maniacal. “I have an idea.” 

  Cerise was thinking almost the same thing her mate was and developed a similar expression. “The anniversary and place where it all started,” she said softly.

***


“You want to do what?” Sander Brees asked in disbelief.

  “He won’t be able to let it go, Sandy,” Elias told the lion with a shrug. “He’ll tear across the entire breadth of the PA to get at me. It’s a lot better than me waiting around or trying to find him.”

  Sandy scowled at the individual on his display. “If you were still part of the family I’d have a psych evaluation done on you! I’m tempted to do that anyway to verify you’re mentally competent to captain your ship!” He snarled and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed tightly. “As it is, I think you’re right, which makes me wonder if I haven’t lost my mind as well.”

  “Well, if I we’re going to flush out Roric Ganlin, we need to be crazy,” Elias quipped.

***

  Roric Ganlin, the leader of what had been one of the most powerful mercenary regiments in Known Space looked at the smoking hole in the display screen and screamed his frustration out. Not long ago he would have been able to vent his spleen in gladiatorial combat with a slave, but that had been taken from him when the Spatial Police Force had appeared at his headquarters within the Van Connor nebula and enough ships to smash his fleet and the fortress world he had had built.

  Not only had they found him, the lackeys of the Planetary Alignment had destroyed his fleet, stormed his home, stripped him of all that he had struggled to claim and take as his, the due rewards for his strength and prowess. As if that weren’t humiliating enough, for the past four weeks the face of the one individual he hated above all others mocked him once every hour from every single channel on the Net.

  Elias Tivnan. 

  The fox from Alexandrius was nothing!  A cog in the bureaucratic machine that was the SPF. That he had the audacity to publicly challenge him was insufferable! Even with the screen in ruins, acrid smoke pouring from the shattered screen and hole that he’d made with his fist, Roric could see the smug features of the white fox and hear his mocking words!  

  “Roric, you know me, and you know I bested you time and again. Now it’s time to end this once and for all. I’ll be waiting where it all began on the anniversary of the day my life changed. Come and find me…if you dare.” 

  Roric Ganlin was unable to ignore the slap in the face and he snarled and gnashed his teeth in impotent fury. All efforts to locate the damnable fox had been thwarted. Even though Tivnan had been running his own business, all transactions were being handled by a third party on Dennier, making getting to the fox and his ship impossible. The hunt for the Ascendant Angel had borne as much in the way of results as had the hunter-killer teams sent after his family. The lion’s assassins hadn’t just failed, they’d disappeared. Not even the mole in the thrice cursed SPF could verify what had happened to them.

  Of course, then his mole had vanished as well.

  Ganlin didn’t have the personnel to spare for the hunt any more. He barely had enough to run the ship he was on.

  From almost ten thousand loyal fighters, the lion was left with a little under two dozen. Soldiers that would have gladly cut their own throats, or slashed those of their very own offspring to please him, were gone. Most perished when his fleet was destroyed and their home that he’d named Gehenna had been split open in the nuclear fire that had been their only haven since forced exile from Mainor.

  All because of this demon fox with white fur and his bitch of a mate!

  Ganlin stood so quickly that he knocked the chair he’d been sitting in over and clawed at his own face and chest in the throes of frustration anger and hatred that suffused him while screaming his rage at the ruined terminal. Heaving with the deep breaths that he sucked in, Roric Ganlin stomped to the bridge of the Fynian corvette that he and his followers had managed to capture, the silver and blue markings on the hull having been replaced with his own red and black and the name changed from Valorous Son to Black Dagger of Hatred, a name that Roric found most fitting.

  Without pausing to acknowledge the obsequious gestures of his remaining crew, Roric stepped up to the navigation console and punched in a series of coordinates after backhanding the younger lion that was attending the position out of the way.

  “Make for these coordinates with all due speed,” the large lion snarled.

  “But…Milord,” the pilot protested with a submissive bow of his head, “this would put us too close to Dennier. Surely the broadcast is an SPF trick! Wouldn’t it be more prudent to-”

  Before the lynx could say anymore, Roric had the cat out of the seat, his feet dangling in the air as the lion’s hand began to tighten on the other’s throat. “Are you challenging my orders?” he whispered, the soft tones dripping with hostile intent and malice.

  “N-no m-m-milord!” the lynx croaked, his eyes bulging as his throat was slowly crushed. “W-we’ll make w-w-way at once!”

  Roric dropped the cat and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Inform me when we reach those coordinates. Until then, I am not to be disturbed.”

  “Yes, milord!” the lynx wheezed, climbing back into his seat at the helm controls.

  The rest of the staff on the bridge pointedly looked away as their master paused at the engineering console and looked down on the cougar that manned that station. He was barely fifteen, if that, and struggled to make sure he performed his duties flawlessly. 

  No one reacted to his mewls of pain or pleas for help as Roric Ganlin scruffed the youth and dragged him back to his cabin. It was only to be expected as the lion had already gone through their limited number of females.

***

  “Anything?” Elias asked as he sat at the controls. The Ascendant Angel was parked in the same position between Dennier and the lifeless mass of Mainor, the point that he had encountered the Shiva two years prior. The fox’s arms were crossed over his chest and he looked pensively out the forward viewports.

  Cerise shook her head. “Just background noise. All the regular communication traffic from Dennier and radioactive static from Mainor.”

  With a sigh of frustration Elias went back to his silent vigil.

  Throughout the rest of the ship the others were standing by at their various posts. Lena waited for something to happen while sitting in the cockpit of the ThunderBolt that rested in the cargo bay. Randal was ready to open the large hatch for the rabbit’s launch, the bay already depressurized and the wolf in an armored spacesuit. In engineering were Baxter and Sabine, both mechanics going over the engines, power systems yet again. They were also in pressure suits, though theirs were stripped down variants so they could still access the various portions of the ship.

  Olin Murphy was ready to employ what he’d learned of firefighting should the Okami model freighter require it. Lem and Keena were likewise waiting, the infirmary prepared for nearly any medical emergency.

  Odette waited with Sonja in the armored cubicle with Randal, armored and ready to either repel borders or take the offensive should Roric Ganlin actually show and manage to dock with them. Manning the weapons systems was Pala Lon. The Kastan was as calm as she always seemed, the only outward sign of her own anticipation was the fervor that she was buffing her claws with.

  “I’ve got something!” Cerise called out after nearly an hour more of sitting at her console. Before Elias could inquire what it was the vixen piped the transmission to the rest of the ship.

  “I was wondering if this was a trap. To see that you’re really here and alone is rather astounding,” the voice over the communications channel growled, the menacing thrum beneath the words quite clear.

  Elias made sure that his snort of contempt was more than audible. “I tend to keep my word, Roric,” the white fox said with a calm that he didn’t feel. No sooner had the lion’s voice come over the speaker than a spike of adrenaline shot through him. “Unlike some who will let those below him die while their master hides in the shadows.”

  Even as he taunted the other, Elias turned to look at his mate who was busy pinpointing the source of the transmission. He knew that his mate that she wouldn’t give anything away by accidentally letting something slip on the transmission link. She worked furiously as the two spoke.

  “Pawns, Elias. They have their uses in all games. Their purpose was served.”

  Information began to scroll across the forward viewport as Cerise put the information she was able to glean up for her husband. Even though the lion was having the transmission bounced through a relay of satellites, the petite vixen was still able to run a trace of the carrier wave. Her expression was one of contempt. With faster-than-light communications available the smart thing would have been to use the carrier wave to send the signal from out-system before being looped back. Instead the egoist was routing first to the Dennier network before bouncing the signal through the few remaining satellites around Mainor. Cerise printed her findings on all the screens throughout the ship, not just Elias’.

  ‘He’s approaching from the direction of the sun.’

  In the days of early spaceflight and all the way back to when the first sentients had built the first airplanes, a favorite tactic to catch an enemy unaware was to come at them from the sun. While it still worked occasionally, normally it was for prey that wasn’t expecting trouble.

  Elias’ fingers tapped out a question even as he spoke to Roric. “I do hope that you plan on sending a visual transmission as well,” the fox said as he waited for his mate’s reply to ‘How far?’ on his screen. “I want to make sure that I kill you this time and not some poor deluded soul. At least Brada had enough guts to look me in the eye before he killed himself like a mewling kitten.”

‘300,000+ Km.’

  Elias nodded and turned to give his wife a wink. 

  “Brada! Brada died gloriously, and denied you the credit for his kill, as was only proper, pup!” There was more to the rant, most of it foul language regarding Elias’ lineage of mouse-pouncers and skulkers in the undergrowth. 

  As the lion ranted, Elias had Lena exit the cargo bay unpowered before spinning the ship to face the sun that bathed Dennier and the remnants of Mainor in its yellow glow. The fox laughed out loud at the accusations. “Skulking? Who’s skulking? I said I would be here waiting, and so I am. Where as you are pointedly not. Would you rather we take this to some planet so you can slink in the grass, your belly low to the ground where no one will be able to witness you pissing yourself when you realize you’ve met your better?”

  The snarl of rage that ripped over the speakers gave Elias a feeling of extreme satisfaction.

  “Communications have been disconnected,” Cerise informed her mate. “I think you’ve irritated him.”

  “It’s a knack I have,” the white fox commented drily. “Can you patch me through to Lena without anyone else out there hearing it?”

  “Already done,” the vixen told her mate. “We set up encryption for all of our communications last week. Unless someone trying to listen in has some serious computers to dedicate to breaking what we’ve got there’s no way they can tap into our transmissions. Even if did tap into or signals it would take them days to unravel it.”

  Elias tossed a look of approval over his shoulder even as he toggled the comm circuit for his First Officer. “Lena, stay in our shadow. I’m going to be moving us in at one quarter speed to start, though as soon as we’re in strike range I’ll be pouring on the power.”

  “They aren’t going to be worried about me, then. Cerise has got me a good feed with the Angel’s sensors, so you do what you need to. We’ll punch his ticket one way or the other today.”

  “You stay safe,” Elias told the doe.

  “You, too.”

  Cerise pasted the information on the ship that was headed towards them for everyone to see. While the corvette outweighed the freighter by several thousand tones, the advantage was offset by Elias’ experience and the dedication of his friends. Minutes passed as the two vessels hurtled through space at each other, neither ship altering course in the slightest. 

  As soon as the Ascendant Angel reached the extreme range of the corvette’s weapons, bright bolts of pulse cannon fire flared from the darkness of space. “Lena, I’m getting ready to pour on the speed. Prepare for break-away!”

  “Copy that, Elias. Don’t worry about me!”

  With a nod that the doe couldn’t see, Elias slammed the throttles to their stops. The oversized propulsion units made it look to Lena as if she were suddenly traveling in the opposite direction from the Okami H model freighter. With the same surprise she always felt at seeing such a large object moving at such incredible velocity the rabbit kicked her own fighter into action, keeping behind the Ascendant Angel, yet out of the plume of superheated gasses that emanated from the huge engines.

  Letting the blindingly bright rounds that came at them dissipate harmlessly off the shields, Elias waited until the last possible moment before triggering his own cannon. The fox wasn’t expecting to crack the corvette’s shields immediately, and just when it looked as if they would plow into the blunt prow of the Fynian built vessel, Elias kicked the maneuvering thrusters into action, pushing the Angel under the belly of Roric’s ship before pitching the nose up. He continued to release torrents of hot plasma into the under structure and hull, Pala keeping sustained fingers of white laser light unerringly on target.

  Lena followed right on the tail of the freighter adding her own contribution to the sustained fire. The doe was tempted to employ some of the missiles that the ThunderBolt carried, though she refrained, knowing that it was still too soon in the tussle. No sooner did she complete her strafing run than her threat board lit up with a shrill alarm to let her know that she was being acquired for targeting. With a smirk, the rabbit nudged her fighter closer to the corvette as the weapons the warship carried wouldn’t be able to depress far enough to get a clean shot and followed on Elias’ heels.

  Cerise watched her console as the corvette started to come about to bring the bulk of its weapons to bear on them, though something didn’t seem quite right and whatever it was the vixen couldn’t put her finger on it. As she pinged away with active sensor scans, new information came up. “I’m getting missile signatures! No launch, but they’re prepped!” she called out. “Sensors indicate non-nuke!”

  “Copy that,” Elias called back. “Pala! Ready on countermeasures!”

  Before any of the Legion gunners could open fire, the fox had already come about and kept the bow of the Angel pointed at the stern of the corvette, cannon blazing away at the shielding that protected the rear of the ship. This also prevented the Okami from entering the firing arc of the larger ship’s missile racks. 

  “Their aft shields are failing!” Cerise sang out.

  “Fire torpedoes!” Elias barked, too intent on his flying to worry about anything else.

  From the forward lateral line, two heavy warheads blasted out on gouts of eye-searing white fire. Even as his hands worked the controls to keep on the tail of the larger ship, furred fingers depressing the triggers for the forward cannon, Elias watched as the Legion pilot finally slung the larger vessel about. The torpedoes slammed into the port hull shields, some of the residual energy making it through the protective field that arced madly as most of the explosive energy was dispersed though the bleed-through boiled away the hastily slathered paint job. As the explosions dissipated, Elias could see where the hull plates had been cooked clean and alloy glinted in the light from the stars around them.

  Adding power to the maneuvering thrusters failed to put the Ascendant Angel back on the corvettes aft, and Elias had to roll and pull away as weapons arrays opened up on the freighter. Whoever was piloting might not be the best, but the gunnery crews were on top of their game and round after round of energy and solid shot or explosive projectiles slammed into the protective bubble, dropping the effectiveness incrementally, though the abuse was having an accumulative result. Even as the fox tried to evade the blistering fire from the Legion vessel, Pala kept the ventral and dorsal laser weapons on the larger foe.

  “Things are getting hot down here, Captain!” Baxter called out over the intercom. “I don’t think the shields will be able to handle a whole lot more before the breakers pop!”

  His lips pulled back from his teeth as he concentrated on flying, Elias nudged the response button. “Can you give us ten more minutes, Bax?”  

“We’ll see what we can do, Captain. Sabine’s already in the crawl space working on keeping the primary breakers from going,” the panda said.

  “Don’t do anything foolish! We’ll finish this up as quick as we can!”

  Deep in the bowels of the Q-ship, the red squirrel was struggling to add superconducting strands to the breaker assemblies. Sabine had had to don an environmental suit to protect her from the unbelievable amount of heat that was pouring off of the circuit breakers for the shield power grid, and even as she bound the breakers, her hands were uncomfortably warm and she was panting in an effort to cool off even though her suit was at its lowest setting.

  On the bridge Elias made a decision that would either succeed brilliantly or get all of them killed. “Pala, slave lasers and torpedoes to my target! We’re going to hit them with everything at once! Lena! Prepare for a tandem run! Target their bridge!”

  “Copy that, Elias! I’m already on your six high! Pave the way and I’ll follow!” the rabbit confirmed.

  The time to run was over, and even as he hauled back on the throttle controls, Elias flipped the Okami with enough force and violence so that everyone was forced down into their seats as the dampeners struggled to compensate. As soon as the ship was once again facing the corvette, the white fox used the micro circuitry embedded in the glassteel viewports to provide an enhanced image window for targeting. With a grimace of determination, the fox fed power to the engines and with expert nudges to the controls lined up his targeting reticule on the corvette’s bridge before opening up with pulse cannon and missiles.

***

  “Come about!” Roric Ganlin howled at the pilot, his fingers gripping the armrests of his chair so tightly his claw tips had sunk into the injection molded plastic sheathing over the steel frame. Not for the first time since the battle had been joined, Roric wished he’d taken the time to learn how to fly starships. The lynx at the controls had been recommended by the lion’s right hand, Major Zachary Brada himself. 

  So far Roric had not been impressed in the slightest.

  As the lynx complied, Roric watched his tactical display, his eyes narrowing as the freighter that had been running away slowed drastically before beginning a course change.

  “What in the Twelve Hells is that fox doing?” Roric asked no one in particular.

  “I believe he’s lining up for an attack, Milord,” the pilot answered, though unaware of it, speaking had earned him a dangerous look from Roric Ganlin.

  “Then he is more of a fool than I thought,” the lion sneered with contempt. “All weapons! Prepare to fire! Engineering! What is the status of our shields?”

  The young cougar that had worked tirelessly since they had acquired the corvette turned hollow eyes to the lion, his ears still plastered to his head with the shame of what his leader had done to him. “Shields are at seventy percent, Milord,” he answered flatly.

  “Then Tivnan is a fool,” Roric said as he turned back to the viewports.

  No more so than you, the cougar thought as he slowly placed his hand over the board of his console. Even as the first winklings of illumination from the freighter’s weapons appeared, the cougar disengaged the emitters for the protective energy fields even as he thumbed the safety cap off of the hand grenade he’d surreptitiously pulled from his pocket.

***

  No sooner had the first rounds impacted with the corvette’s forward defensive screens than the readings on Cerise’s sensors changed. “They’ve lost shields!” she exclaimed, her voice high and brittle in disbelief. “They’re unprotected!”

  “Pala!” Elias all but yelled, “Give ‘em all you got! Lena! Hit with everything you’ve got!”

  The weapons on the Ascendant Angel and the small fighter that accompanied it spat hellfire and fury at the Fynian built vessel. Though none of them could see it at this range, the hull of the corvette, despite the reactive armor beneath the outer hull plating, had huge divots blasted from the warship. Pulse cannon vaporized foot wide holes in the alloy sheeting while missiles and torpedoes cracked and shattered the ceramic composite under-armor.

  All of them saw when the onslaught finally penetrated and ignited the internal atmosphere, though. Like a blowtorch, the oxygen rich internal atmosphere of the corvette turned into a contrasting blue gout of fire, and still Elias, Pala and Lena added to the conflagration. Pulse cannon bolts tore through bulkheads, missiles made it past the inferno of escaping air to bounce from deck plates before detonating, the resulting blast tearing even further into the bowels of the ship.

  Though it was over a dozen yards away from the mortal wound in the bow, the engines of the corvette received more than enough damage from vibrations that sheared bolts and mounting brackets and the resultant feedback surges as power dispersal junctions were turned to slag. Before the three individuals of the Ganlin Legion that functioned as the ship’s engineers could turn for the nearest lifeboats, the Siilv enhanced fusion engines reached critical and as the magnetic containment units failed, began to consume themselves in an uncontrolled reaction.

  If Cerise hadn’t called out a timely warning, Elias and Lena would have both flown straight into the expanding cloud of star-hot plasma as the corvette exploded in a nuclear flash. As it was, the doe and her fighter were saved the worst of it by the protection of the Ascendant Angel. The freighter, though, suffered complete shield failure at the initial electromagnetic pulse that is always the result of nuclear detonations. With her aft and belly unprotected, the Angle took substantial damage with one engine shutting down as one of the three onboard computers detected an unsafe balance in starboard unit’s own magnetic containment and automatically shut the engine off before the same thing that had destroyed the corvette occurred again.

  When Lena docked with the Ascendant Angel she was greeted warmly by both Randy and Sabine, the trio insulating themselves from the rest of the universe in the circle of their embrace. It was a similar scene with the rest of the crew members while Elias simply sat in the pilot’s chair, his eyes locked on the image that he’d brought up of where the corvette had been. When Cerise touched his shoulder with a gentle hand, he looked up at her with tired eyes before pulling the vixen onto his lap. With arms tight about her body, the white fox buried his face in the soft fur of her neck and sobbed silently with relief.

***

  “Grandstorm control, Grandstorm control, this is the Ascendant Angel, PA registry 971969. Requesting priority status for berthing at the Okami shipyards,” Elias called out over the air traffic control frequency. He would have let Cerise handle this aspect, but apart from himself and Lena, everyone else was getting some well deserved sleep.

  “Copy, Ascendant Angel,” the on duty controller, a male fox that was assigned to the freighter, said. He sent reentry data to the vessel.“You are cleared for priority landing via SPF status. Do you need to declare an emergency?”

  The situation was enough to cause the white fox a moment of déjà vu.

  Elias chuckled weekly. “Not this time.” He looked over his readouts and nodded to himself. “We aren’t in the best of shape, but are not in need of emergency status.”

  “Affirmative, Ascendant Angel. You are clear for approach to the Okami shipyards. We’ll maintain monitoring and have rescue services on stand-by.”

  “Acknowledged, Grandstorm,” Elias quipped. “Ascendant Angel out.” He tossed a look at Lena and cracked a lopsided grin. “If it’s any consolation I really don’t think we’re going to crash.”

  The doe laughed, completely relaxed. “I’d trust your crashing over a lot of others just landing. To be honest, I’m just ready for some R and R.”

  “That makes two of us.”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.