T. Harris - The Tactics of Revenge

A mass of transports clogged the access gates in and out of the complex, so Riyad steered to the left and plowed through the metal fence next to the main gate.

The crash was loud and violent, as the metal fence bounced off the hood of the car, smashing the front windshield. Glass filled the driver and passenger seats, but Riyad and Thomas seemed unfazed. They simply bushed the broken glass off of themselves, not bothered by the tiny moles of blood now appearing across their faces and arms.

They were now on a main street and moving as fast as the small electric vehicle would allow. “Where to,” Riyad yelled, the wind whipping into the compartment through the shattered windshield.

“Turn right at the next intersection. I’ll guide you from there,” said Carter Thomas.

Adam kept looking through the cracked rear window of the car to see if they were being pursued. Fortunately, there was very little traffic in this part of the city and no one was following them. Soon Thomas guided them into a rundown industrial section of the city where he had Riyad stop next to a row building with the truck from the estate parked outside.

They exited the dented and scratched car and ran through a set of double doors into the building.

Adam was relieved to see a large shuttle sitting in the middle of a cavernous warehouse, the side entrance to the shuttle open, and Andy Tobias standing in the doorway.

“Thank god. We were beginning to worry,” he said, eyeing Adam and McCarthy’s shirtless and soaked torsos with a questioning frown as they slipped in past him. “I guess I won’t ask.” The Lieutenant then shut and dogged the hatch behind him.

Adam followed McCarthy to the pilothouse. One of his men — they had not had time to be properly introduced — was seated in the pilot’s seat. Kaylor and Jym were hunched up against the back bulkhead, looking terrified.

“And of course, you also have a shuttle.”

McCarthy slipped into the co-pilot’s seat. “Every contingency covered, Mr. Cain.”

“How the hell did you get it inside the building?”

“A little push here, a little pull there.” McCarthy then busied himself with the prelaunch sequence.

The man sitting next to him soon turned and said, “Primed. We can go at any time.”

“Do it!”

Instantly — and from all around them — there came such a deafening roar that all those not piloting the shuttle placed their hands to their ears. The building around them disintegrated in a cloud of dust and debris, as the first of a series of thousands of micro gravity wells formed far above them. The shuttle was drawn into the air, a bright flash of sunlight now blazing through the shuttle’s viewport. The debris streaming up all around them soon disappeared and the city fell away quickly below. Within three minutes, they were in space.

Kaylor stepped up behind the pilot. “This is a short-range shuttle. It won’t get us very far,” he said, concern thick in his voice.

“It only needs to get us there,” McCarthy said, pointing through the viewport at the smaller of the two moons of Marishal.

Adam stepped up next to McCarthy’s seat. “Don’t tell me, you also have starship hidden on the moon?”

“Nothing fancy, just a little Klin 722 — you probably don’t even know what that is, do you?”

“ I do,” said Kaylor. He looked over at Adam. “It’s like the ships we saw on Calamore, at the Klin base there. Basic, but it will suffice.”

Adam placed his hand on Nigel McCarthy’s broad and freckled shoulder. “I’m impressed, Mr. McCarthy. Well done.”

McCarthy looked up at him and grinned. “And that is why the SAS can beat the shit out of a SEAL any day.”

Adam returned the grin. He would leave that comment alone — for now.

Most beings throughout the Expansion would have been surprised to learn that the Juirean High Military Command was not housed in Malor Tower. Nor was it in one of the five surrounding structures the Tower that made up the Arolus Array high atop the Kacoran Plain on Juir.

Rather, the structure that housed the supreme military force in the galaxy was located a kilometer away in a non-descript building behind a cluster of limillian trees. If one didn’t know where to look, it could be easily missed.

One would think this camouflage of the building was intentional, being as it was the headquarters of powerful and secret military activity. In truth, it was not. Instead, for generations the military operations of the Expansion — and the Juireans in particular — had faded into disinterest and neglect. This was no anybody’s fault; it was simply the verities of the times, where peace reigned and dangerous bombast was suppressed by pragmatic need.

And so it was with eye-opening consternation that Council Elder Hydon Ra Elys traveled the short distance to the building just as the battle of Falor-Kapel was unfolding.

With Hydon’s already proclaimed resolution to rebuild the Juirean military to its former glory, he was shocked and appalled to see just how much work lay ahead of him. Even with the recent upgrades made since the beginning of the Juirean-Human conflict, Hydon still couldn’t believe how archaic and out-of-date were so much of the Command’s equipment and processes.

And the Command was only short walk from the very capital of the Expansion.

In the darkened room, surrounded by other Councilmembers, a dozen Elites and an untold number of Overlords, the leader of the Expansion had waited for any word of the battle taking place on the other side of the galaxy. Communications would take four hours to reach them, and so far, the only communique had been a cryptic flash from a supply ship well outside the battle zone mentioning something about ‘additional units.’

What additional units? Whose units? And to what affect?

So when the first detailed link came through, sent out through space four hours earlier, all the highest and most powerful beings in the galaxy huddled closer to the linking screen for the update.

An image appeared, of a haggard looking Guard wearing the capes of a ship’s commander. He began to speak very fast. “This is Senior Guard Sevan Ra Vulus. I command one of the three remaining Juirean vessels-”

Although unaccustomed to spontaneous displays of emotion, most of those huddled around the screen cried out with joy. Even the Elder smiled. He knew this had been a possibility; the forces were just too close to parity. And yet if the Human fleet had been destroyed, with only a few Juirean ships surviving, then that was an acceptable price to pay. The Juirean fleet could always be rebuilt.

But the Senior Guard was continuing: “The three ships that made it through the meat-grinder have assembled near the third planet in the system. We all suffered considerable damage during the journey. I will soon be transferring my surviving crew to one of the less-damaged ships in order to escape the system.”

Escape. Escape from what? Hydon thought.

Sevan was still speaking: “The Humans have regrouped outside the damper field, and even as we speak are sending out scouts searching for survivors. I do not have much time. I am sure by this time you know of the fleet’s destruction…”

Which fleet! Human…or Juirean!

“…When the second Human fleet appeared, all of our forces were trapped at the bottom of the Kapelean Corridor. Some tried to run the damper field, but were cut down by the waiting Humans. Also, the Humans appear to have more advanced weapons which can penetrate diffusion screens with impunity. I…wait.” Sevan was handed a datapad from off screen. “I have just now received the latest screen-capture, which was taken just as we entered the asteroids. Seven hundred forty-two was the last count. That is the number of surviving Human combatants.”