Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Battle of the Ring

“Break off!” he told her.

“Not yet,” she said. “If nothing else. I have will work against this thing, I am going to give it my coversion cannon. I have already called back my packs to support me… damnation!”

“What?” Tryn asked, perplexed.

“Stingships! Wave upon wave of stingships. There must be a thousand in all, with battleships and destroyers closing from every direction. Val traron, have we wandered into a trap!”

Another explosion rocked the entire ship. Tryn glanced around apprehensively, well aware that something major had been hit. “What was that?”

“One of my forward engines,” Schayressa replied absently. “Prepare for firing. Keldryn, stand ready to take the helm.”

Schayressa ceased firing as she readied her conversion cannon, opening the armored portal in the flattened hexagonal tube beneath her shock bumper. In the conversion chamber at the base of that tube, over half a kilometer back from the Kalvyn’s tapered nose, hundreds of liters of distilled water were being converted rapidly into energy, temporarily confined within heavy containment fields. Special field-projecting antennas dropped down to either side of the cannon’s muzzle, which glowed with the white-hot energy contained at its core.

In the final seconds before firing, Schayressa centered the cannon by aiming herself at her target. At the same time the Fortress ceased firing and cut all acceleration as if calmly awaiting certain destruction. Then, even as the Kalvyn fired, the Challenger merged the full power of all her generators into the formation of a single defensive shield so powerful that it enveloped the entire ship in a solid white sphere. That devastating blast of raw energy from the conversion cannon struck the shield dead center… and was deflected harmlessly.

From the Kalvyn’s point of view, that was not immediately apparent. For three full seconds she poured the power of a star against that glowing white shell. Seconds more passed as the glowing clouds of red, yellow, and blue dissipated and nothing could be seen. Then the Fortress emerged from that fiery mass, unharmed. The vast warship seemed to pause a moment to look around, then turned every gun it could on the Starwolf carrier.

“Val traron de altrys caldarson!” Schayressa muttered in her surprise as bolts rang against her hull. After a moment she looked at her Commander. “Tryn, I am beaten. I am getting out of here as fast as I can.”

Engaging her star drive momentarily, she jumped past the Fortress and out of range in a matter of seconds. Coasting at just sunlight, she made a slow retreat out of the system to give her fighters a chance to overtake her, still engaged with the hundreds of stingships that had already altered their course to follow. It was humiliating for a Starwolf carrier, beaten and battered, to turn and run, unprecedented in recent memory.

“All fighters close to five hundred kilometers and remain on defensive alert,” she began her instructions. “Damage control and engineering, begin immediately repairs. Engineering, take a look at that damaged engine. All nonactive personnel will remain at standby until further notice.”

“How bad is it?” Tryn asked.

Schayressa brought her camera pod back to the upper bridge. “Not so bad, really. Aside from the wrecked engine, I have no mechanical damage. I just need acres and acres of new plating.”

“So? Are you thinking about going back to fight that thing?”

“Oh, I can fight again,” she assured him. “But I am not going to until I figure out how… Hello?”

Commander Tryn glanced up at her. “What is it?”

“A message coming in,” she explained, looking bemused. “Sector Commander Donalt Trace wants to talk to us.”

“Oh?” The Commander sat back in his chair, pondering that. “Surely he has more on his mind than just gloating.”

“It cannot hurt to listen to what he has to say,” Keldryn offered. Like all good second-in commands, she was certain that the upper bridge needed her advice to function best.

“Very well, put him on,” Tryn agreed. “Do you have a picture?”

“Audio only.”

“Good. I do not have to look at him.”

“Commander?” a voice asked over the static of an open channel. The Union did not have good achronic communications.

“This is Commander Tryn of the Kalvyn.”

“Yes, this is Commander Donalt Trace on board the Fortress Marenna Challenger. So, what do you think of my new ship?”

“Very impressive,” Tryn agreed, very noncommmital in his reply. He meant to learn all he could while not giving away any information… not even an opinion. “You are the Captain of this ship?”

“Me? No! I designed the Fortress; but Maeken Kea is the Captain of the Challenger,” Trace continued. “You know, I was hoping that it would be the Methryn that would come blundering into the trap you sprung. Still, it might be better this way. I knew that the first ship to run up against my Fortress would turn tail and run until it knew what it was fighting. The second time around will be a fight to the death. Now you, of course, are thinking that you are going to find a way to defeat my Fortress, while I know you cannot. We shall see who is right.”

“I suppose we shall.”

“Better yet, why not send for Velmeran and the Methryn,” Trace suggested. “He is the best you have. This is the best I have. Why not just have it out, and settle that question once and for all?”

“This is the Kalvyn’s sector, not the Methryn’s,” Tryn said to avoid a direct reply.

“Perhaps, but Velmeran has often fought where he is needed,” Trace reminded him. “Still, whatever you think best. My Fortress has already given you a minor mauling. I would just as well finish you off now and deal with Velmeran next. He should come running in a hurry when he hears that my Fortress destroyed one of his own carriers.”

“As you said earlier, we shall see,” Tryn replied.

“Yes, so we shall,” Commander Trace agreed. With that the channel went abruptly dead.

Tryn looked up at Schayressa’s camera pod. “Well, what do you make of that? He seems very sure of himself.”

“He might have reason to be,” the ship answered. “I have been reviewing the scan of his ‘Fortress’… a very apt name, I might add. It has a defense for everything we could throw against it. The only way to beat it is by superior strategy.”

“Superior strategy?” Tryn sat for a moment, musing on that. He looked up at Keldryn, waiting patiently at his side. “You go and take a look at our damage and report back to me. Schayressa, park yourself outside this system and do what you can with your damage. Send out two or three drones to scout out what they can. I want to know where those warships and stingships came from, and what else they might have in hiding. And warm up the achronic.”

“The Methryn?”

Tryn shrugged. “If he wants Velmeran so badly, I suppose that we should send him Velmeran.”

The weather at the port of Kallenes had turned bad during the night. A wet mixture of hail and sleet was driven by a fitful gale, whipping down out of the mountains now hidden behind a blank wall of mist and clouds. Dawn came late and warmed only to a dim twilight. The port field was transformed into a glacial expanse of damp, heavy snow that had gathered in crusty banks on the backs of the black wolf fighters and transports huddled like langies against the winter blast in the near corner of the field.

The Mall that morning was cold, damp, and dark, the skylights covered over with snow so that the dim lighting gave the appearance of late night. To add to that, no one was about the narrow streets that morning except those who had no choice, and a few dozen Starwolves who had the place entirely to themselves. One of the few travelers about the Mall that morning was Velmeran, waiting impatiently for the tailor to open his shop so that he could collect his armor.