William Forstchen - False Colors

Flag Bridge, KIS Karga

Near Vaku VII, Vaku System

1335 hours (CST), 2669.315

Admiral Largka Cakg dai Nokhtak gripped the arms of his command chair as the ship shuddered under the impact of multiple torpedo hits and the red lights flickered in protest. “Damage report,” he ordered tautly, studying the Kilrathi Hyilghar in front of him with a stern eye. Young, proud, with a stiffly erect bearing and green eyes gleaming against his tawny fur, the staff officer was the very picture of a young Kilrathi warrior. He wore his beard and mane short in the most recent court fashion, and his fangs gleamed in the dim orange light of the flag bridge.

“Lord Admiral, neither the command bridge nor the secondary control center respond.” The young officers voice quavered a little, but he kept himself under rigid control. Largka allowed himself a moment’s pride. It was his sister’s son’s first deep-space assignment, his first brush with the God of the Running Death, and Hyilghar Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak was bearing up with courage and honor. “The launch bays have ceased operation to repair damage to the flight control computer, and the port side hangar deck is blocked by debris. With the previous damage to the starboard hangar deck, we cannot retrieve the fighters we have already deployed. Structural integrity in the stern section between bulkheads fifty and seventy-two is down by better than seventy percent. We have lost long-range sensors, interstellar drive, and the main tactical computer. Backup systems are functional but overloaded. Defensive weaponry is operable, but without the tactical computer must be directed manually. Offensive weapons are still functional, but with intermittent power failures…”

Largka waved his nephew to silence. That is sufficient,“ he said quietly. ”Neither the Captain nor the Exec is available?“

Murragh extended a clawed hand palm-up, the empty hand of negation. “Neither bridge is in contact with the rest of the ship,” he said. “I fear both took direct hits. Nhagrah ko Lannis is the senior officer, but he is Chief Engineer, not fit for a combat command…”

The Admiral made the grasping gesture of understanding. “What of the apes?” The ship shuddered again as if to emphasize his question.

“Both cruisers are concentrating on us now that the Frawqirg is out of the action, Lord Admiral,” Murragh said. “At last report one of them was showing definite power drops and was trailing atmosphere at a rate that indicated imminent structural failure. That was before the sensors went off-line. The other cruiser is also damaged, but to a lesser extent.”

“And your assessment of our options, young Hyilghar ?” he asked quietly, maintaining a rigid calm to counter the grim situation. “An exercise for a young officer.”

Murragh didn’t answer right away. Finally he spoke. “We cannot run. Our chances of defeating both ape ships are small, given the extent of the damage. The fighters we have deployed already are running low on fuel and ammunition, and they cannot resupply while the hangar bays are down.” His eyes met his uncle’s. “What other option is there save to the with honor?”

Largka showed his teeth. “What option, indeed?” Inwardly his heart was filled with pride, knowing Murragh could meet the final race with the Running Death with the true Kilrathi spirit. But pride was balanced by rage. They had come so close to victory, but it had eluded their grasping hands by less than a claws-length. “Return to your post, Hyilghar ,” he said quietly. “And reflect on this…you have done well, young Murragh. Your entire clan would be proud today…as I am.”

He turned back to the bank of readouts and monitors, most of them blank, that were supposed to allow him to direct a multi-ship deep-space battle. Irony tasted bitter in Largkas mouth. He had argued for months that he should be given a battle command instead of being confined to a staff job on Kilrah, and always his cousin Thrakhath had said there was no available command large enough to sustain the honor of the Imperial Family. Largka had appealed directly to Thrakhath s grandfather, the Emperor himself, protesting that he would take any squadron, however small or unimportant.

And the Emperor had granted his request. A tiny raiding squadron operating on the fringes of the war zone between humans and Kilrathi, one of the new supercarriers and a scratch supporting battle group of only four escorts. And those had fallen one by one during the disastrous raid on the world the humans called “Landreich.” First the two cruisers, then the destroyer Takh’lath , and finally the escort Frawqirg , caught by the two Terran cruisers and badly damaged before Karga could secure from jump and assist him. The crippled escort had last been seen shaping an orbit for the inner moon of the oversized gas giant Vaku, a marginally habitable world where they might manage a landing and await a rescue…if the Kilrathi won the engagement in space.

But it was clear that wasn’t the likely outcome of today’s battle. Without escorts, even a supercarrier was vulnerable to a sustained attack by conventional warships. Carriers weren’t supposed to fight in the thick of the fray. Karga had been forced to do just that, though, and it would take a miracle for him to pull through.

But before he died, the carrier would give a good account of himself against the apes. Largka vowed to make the Terrans remember Vaku, one way or another.

“Concentrate fire on the lead Terran cruiser,” he ordered. It was strange to be making tactical decisions again, fighting a ship instead of directing a whole squadron. But with both the carrier s control rooms out of operation, his flag bridge was the closest thing to a tactical control center left on Karga . “Ignore the other one…but kill that ape cruiser!”

“As you order, Lord Admiral,” one of his aides acknowledged.

Largka studied his monitor screen with the chill calm of a warrior determined to fight to the bitter end.

Engineering Control Center, TCS Juneau

Near Vaku VII, Vaku System

1342 hours (CST)

Commander Douglas Scott Graham stared at the image on his monitor screen in horror and disbelief, hardly able to watch but equally unable to tear his eyes away.

He was watching a ship die, a sight all too common for a Terran Confederation Navy officer in this thirty-fifth year of continuous warfare with the Kilrathi Empire. Plenty of ships had been lost over that decades-long span, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch TCS Juneau’s consort, Dover , coming apart under the incredible bombardment generated by the Kilrathi carrier the two Terran ships faced today.

Kruger wanted revenge , he thought bitterly. I hope it’s worth the price we’re paying .

The two cruisers were part of a Terran Confederation task force operating among the frontier worlds in loose cooperation with colonial military units and semi-autonomous planetary governments. The most prominent of these was Landreich, neither wholly independent nor fully cooperative under the leadership of its maverick president, Max Kruger. Kruger had reluctantly played the role of cavalry-to-the-rescue during the Kilrathi assault against the Sol system three years back, and now when Kruger sneezed there was a scramble among Confederation leaders to see who could hand him a handkerchief the fastest. So when the small but deadly Kilrathi carrier battle group had launched a raid on Landreich itself, every ship in the region had been summoned to intercept them before they could return to Imperial space.