P Hillard - The Knower of Truths

“That is a horrible image,” Mellok said, vocalising Michael’s thoughts for him. “I’m not entirely sure I want to eat now.”

“You wanted to eat more mushrooms anyway? Not sick of them yet?” Michael said.

“A fair statement. When we get to Cortica, I’ll treat you to some of our cuisines. Some delicious paradek beetles, or arcturian worms. Oh, or a snellek, it’s a kind of large maggot.”

“You know,” Michael said. “On second thought, mouthfuls of mushroom and invisible robots sounds fine.”

Greddog’s fleet floated slowly, their position concealed by a dwarf planet at the far end of the system. There were two hundred ships total, including the imposing Substrate dreadnought. It dwarfed even Greddog’s personal battleship, a single fearsome weapon surrounded by a cloud of flies.

He was growing impatient. His prey had not arrived yet, and it had been nearly three days. The wait was excruciating. Greddog had considered that perhaps they had missed them, that their ship had arrived and already departed. He had cast that thought aside. The scans the messengers had brought him showed that his quarry had upgraded their ship significantly. A prize like they had acquired was distinctive. Reports of it would still be bouncing around the systems datanet.

Greddog allowed himself a smile. Hiding like this, waiting to strike, it reminded him of his glory days. Lightning raids and daring attacks, dashing into range and jumping out again before the enemy could respond, pushing the reactors beyond safe limits. It had been thrilling, at first. People used to fight back, scrabbling to protect their cargo. After a while, they simply stopped. Greddog’s reputation as a pirate had grown so much that simply appearing was enough to get them to surrender. All the thrill had gone from it, a victim of his own success. Privately Greddog realised that building Ossiark into the casino world it was now was an acceptance of this, a kind of retirement, his mantle growing too heavy.

His Substrate escort had baulked at his plan, to hide in the shadows was considered beneath their kind. Paranax had simply stated they should advance on the planet, sweep aside its defences and raze the world to ash. Then, their target would come to them, into the jaws of the wolf.

Greddog had shot down the idea, much to Paranax’s anger. Still, Abberax had been clear that Greddog was in charge. It was clear the dynamic rankled the lesser Substrate lord, and Greddog watched his dreadnought like a hawk. He trusted the rock creature as far as he could throw him, which admittedly, was not far, substrate Lords favoured forming their bodies from heavy dense metals and minerals, leaving the lesser members of their society to make do with chalk or gypsum.

There was a loud claxon, one of the drones Greddog had scattered through the system had detected a jump corridor exit point. Greddog sat forward in his chair. There had been a few false alarms so far, but something felt different this time. He smiled, revealing his stubby teeth.

The Sword burst back into real space. Mellok was scuttling around the bridge, his fingers clasped together, feathers shaking excitedly. On the screens was a large planet, much bigger than the earth, but the same shades of beautiful green and blue. It made Michael feel a little homesick. Less so were the defensive satellites that were locking onto them, warning lights blaring around the bridge.

“Hang on, let me just enter these codes,” Mellok said, skipping over to the wall console and inputting some numbers. “I just hope they’re still valid.” The lights faded; the weapon locks dropped. “There we go.” The lights resumed moments later, the warnings louder this time. “That is not me.”

“No!” Aileena said from her pilot’s chair. “It’s a different warning! There’s an incoming jump, right on top of us.”

Greddog’s fleet blinked into existence, making the short jump in seconds, revealing themselves from behind their rocky hideaway. They held there in space, motionless for a moment, and then opened fire.

The Sword’s engines engaged, ancient reactionless jets bursting into life, revealing unexpected speed. It accelerated quickly, attempting to escape the barrage of the energy weapons screaming down at them. It was fast, but the enemy fleet was at near point-blank, only light-seconds between them and the Sword. The shots had been fired in a kind of cage seeking to trap the ship within their fusillade. Several shots hit home, their destructive energies escaping in massive explosions. The fires faded, the energy dissipating into space to reveal… nothing. Only a brief blue shimmer that was rapidly fading.

“What in the Rhythm was that?” Aileena said. She wasn’t taking any chances, pushing the Swords engines to its limits in an attempt to gain distance on their opponents. The fleet had appeared from nowhere, a mishmash of ramshackle ships that she would have bet excellent money were Greddog’s. Most worrying was the ship at the centre of the formation, a Substrate dreadnought.

Clive’s form shimmered into being. “Automatic defence protocols engaged. The shots seem to have been absorbed by an energy field of some sort.”

“A shield,” Michael said. “We have shields?”

“What is a shield?” Aileena barked back. “What are you talking about?”

“Are shields not a thing usually? It’s like, a forcefield. Like your grenades or the salvage ships, but on a bigger scale.”

The ship shook, the force of the impacts slamming against the shield reverberating through it, but it took no damage, the ferocious destructive power of the weapons fire lost.

“We should do something, quickly. I was… unaware of this system before, but now it is active I have some idea of its capabilities. It will not last forever,” Clive said. “Concerning, that the ship is hiding things from me.”

“Must be what those energy projectors are for,” Brekt said. “We all assumed they were cannons.”

Mellok forced himself into a gel chair, despite his discomfort. He would rather be uncomfortable than dead. “We appear to have an incoming message,” Mellok said. “Putting it through.”

“No don—” Aileena started, stopping her sentence as the face of Greddog formed from a cloud of shimmering nanobots.

“Ah, so fortuitous to meet you here. I was just in the neighbourhood.” Greddog let out a loud chuckle. “Hand yourselves over peacefully, and I’ll make your deaths quick. Well, quicker than I would of normally.”

“Shut that idiot off,” Aileena said. “I need to focus.”

“Oh right.” Mellok reached across the console.

“Don’t you dare shut m—” The image of Greddog vanished.

“Brekt,” Clive said, his incorporeal image stepping over towards him. “I have activated some options on your console. Now I have access to the, well shields I guess we are calling them; I have some more information. I am no fan of Greddog’s not really. You, all of you, have given me the experience of what it is like to be myself. I know now that to Greddog I was a slave. I say this because the message has allowed me to lock onto his flagship. I also say this, because as well as being defensive, the shield is a weapon.”

The Sword slowed slightly, allowing its targeting to get a secure lock. The enemy fleet wasn’t evading, simply turning to try and match the Sword’s speed, firing a continuous barrage into its path. The shield was fully visible now, the constant strikes revealing a translucent blue bubble around the ship.

Here and there, on the outside of the bubble, round sections grew darker, more solid. The energy bombarding the shield was being funnelled, focused into a point. The spots grew vibrant and bright for a moment, before lances of light burst forth, deadly energies being returned in kind, projected back as their attackers. The lances were aimed at one very specific ship, travelling across the void of space at near light speed, circling their target to prevent it evading.