Blood in the Stars

Chapter 8; The defence of Vetegal

Planetoid body 8856

Harry slowly settled the Prism down onto the upper hull of the Plaides PES, or planetoid evacuation ship, as their class had been known as. Lining up the belly hatch with the docking hatch on the top of the enormous ship. The Prism was pretty big at almost four hundred metres in length but these ships were six thousand metres in length and were built with more than four million tonnes of metal, assuming the weights were based on Earth measurements. In space it didn’t really matter except for the fact it took so long to go around them. The engines were powerful enough to upset the orbits of large asteroids or even small moons. Earth’s greatest countries had put everything they had into these ships and their technology, even six hundred years old, was still in keeping with current weapons and engines and they had a few systems on them that only Harry knew existed, built into them after they’d been hidden here by Harry and his ancient friends.

“How come nobody found these?” Kaylee asked as she stared at them in shock, probably anticipating exploring the machinery onboard. It could take her a lifetime to discover it all and in many cases engineers had actually spent their entire lives onboard one of these ships.

“We’re right on the outskirts of charted space.” Malcolm explained. “The original terraformers came out here to chart the asteroids and to see if there were any planets further out but since then nobody really comes out here. Especially not with ships capable of scanning the surface enough to detect these.”

“But they’re huge, surely just a surface scan...” Doctor Tam.

“The moon we’re on is laced with iron, so much that it has a magnetic influence and since the ship’s are still below the normal height of the surface they’re almost impossible to see and even if somebody did detect them without actually coming down they’d think they were just metal deposits.” Harry shrugged. “And besides, who’d bother coming all the way out here to scan moons and asteroids smaller than the Earth’s moon. There’s just no point.”

“So these two have been hiding here for four hundred years?” Kaylee asked just as Harry stood up from the pilot’s seat and touched Alex on the shoulder. The younger man grinned at Harry, delighted by the sight out of the window.

“These two and the two about eight miles away. Yes.” Harry nodded. “These were four of the original twelve that brought humanity here but these four were being Captained by my friends. We came out here with the settlers and terraformers and even as the central worlds were targeted for terraforming we started with Vetegal and then spread out from there and as soon as the ships were no longer needed we stowed them away in case we ever needed them again.”

“Vetegal was one of the first worlds?” Malcolm asked. “I never heard that.”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t go around spouting history normally.”

Alex laughed and Harry led them down through the ship to one of the smaller store rooms. “The inside has automatic heavy gravity rather than artificial and it’s pressurised but I’d suggest we all wear oxygen masks until I get the ship’s systems back up and running.” Harry informed them and passed out small oxygen cylinders and the seals that went over their mouths and noses.

“You sure you can get them running?” Malcolm asked.

“These aren’t pathetic little drives like you get on ships nowadays. These engines are the size of cities.” Harry laughed. “They’ve got very few moving parts and work on accelerating super-heavy particles.”

“Not anti-gravity drives?” Kaylee looked nervous.

“I’ll explain it all to you and Alex later once we’re down there.” Harry promised as he started down through the ship towards the hatch. “But basically an anti-gravity field surrounded the ship which basically gives it the same characteristics as any ship you’re used to but instead of the slip drives you have to propel normal ships they blast power out of the back.”

“What about in atmosphere?” Malcolm frowned.

“The Prism and the Serenity can’t use the space drives in atmosphere because of the weight of the ship, our systems can’t compete with a planet’s gravity and the air’s pressure but these are powerful enough to compensate.” Harry explained and saw a grin spread across Kaylee’s face.

“I think I’ll be staying boss.” Kaylee announced to the group of nine in general.

Harry popped the hatch and then reached down to open the larger one below and then once open dropped down into the large airlock actually inside the Plaides. The others all followed him down and Luke shut the hatch behind him just in case since there wasn’t any actual atmosphere outside. Harry pulled on his air mask and the others copied him before watching as Harry messed with the panel of switches and lights on the wall which finally beeped at him and he nodded to the others. “The air inside is a little thin but the pressure is alright.”

With that he pressed the door release and grumbled when nothing happened. “Uh...” Malcolm started but Harry ignored him and booted the bottom of the door which screeched and rolled back out of the way. Harry walked through as if that was normal and a slightly nervous group followed him, staring at him in astonishment as Harry spread his arms to the large corridor that they walked into.

“What?” He asked when he saw them looking at him in astonishment. “So she’s old, big shock.”

“You don’t screech when you open.” Alex pointed out.

“He didn’t mean it baby.” Harry patted the wall. “He’ll love you soon.”

“So this one’s special to you?” Luke asked him.

“I came over here on the Plaides.” Harry told them through his mask. “Let’s head straight to the bridge. It’s going to take me a few hours to boot up the system and then I’ll take a pod over to the Achilles, Zeus and Icarus.”

“The what, what and what?” Jayne asked with raised eyebrows.

“It’s Ancient Greek Mythology.” Simon Tam explained to nobody in particular but got confused looks from Kaylee, Luke, Jayne and Alex. “Earth!”

Harry laughed. “I gave up long before you even picked up whichever ancient book you read about that from, Doctor.” Harry laughed. “Even with music.”

“That stuff you listen to is old!” Alex complained.

“What did I say the last time, Alex?” Harry questioned. “Don’t insult something that’s older than spaceflight.”

“I’d just like to point out here that Harry is almost older than spaceflight.” Luke’s smirk was clear through his mask.

Harry rolled his eyes and tugged Luke down the corridor in the direction of the Bridge. “You realise of course that means your frequently having sex with someone older than spaceflight?” Harry asked with a laugh but only Luke heard him and laughed back.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

An hour later

The bridges of these were more control areas and they were huge even though for most of the trip across there had only been a couple of people in there at any one time. The windows gave them a view of the darkness outside but only Harry and Luke could make out anything especially now that Harry had gotten the lights and other systems up and running. There was the slightest of vibrations in the deck now that the ship’s main engine was warming up, running its hour long warm up procedure. Harry remembered the moment when these huge megaliths of technology were finally put to rest here and how silent and horrible it had felt to suddenly have such complete stillness and silence in the ships when they had been running for almost two hundred years.

Now it was coming back to life, warming itself up and almost stretching, readying itself for its return to the waking world from its long hibernation. Harry almost hated the fact he was bringing the Plaides and his brothers into a war but he knew of no other way to ensure their victory.

Harry was at the navigation console while the others were merely lurking around, studying the controls but forbidden to touch anything because none of them had an inkling how to run anything. Harry was merely setting up all the systems to start their warm up so that in two days they could take off from the surface, regroup under autopilot up in space and start their short journey to Vetegal. One advantage of these ships was that they were designed to be flown in automatic and there wasn’t even a pilots console, only navigational systems. A pilot just couldn’t handle the PESs properly but these boys could look after themselves well enough.

“Right, so you guys are going to start looking over your systems and you’ve got two days to do it.” Harry announced as he stood up. “I’m going to be spending the rest of today just going between the ships and warming them up and getting their systems back online but I’ll get you all started off. Alex and Kaylee will look around the engines, Captain Reynolds, River and Luke, you’ll be looking around the navigation systems because you’ll be flying these things when it gets to that which leaves Jayne, Doctor Tam and Zoe to look after the weaponry.”

“These things have weaponry?” Jayne looked surprised. “I thought we were going for scare tactics with these.”

“I thought they were transports?” Malcolm asked.

“They have a weapon.” Harry shrugged. “Slow to fire, slow to charge but it’s got a punch like nothing you’ve ever seen. Granted they were never fired on the way across because the power was required for the engines but we’ll be able to use them.”

“And they’ll still work?” Jayne asked. “Cause you know, explosives tend to have a use by date and I don’t remember any being four hundred years.”

“Who said anything about explosives?” Harry asked. “Remember this is technology from Earth.”

“Uh, right.” Jayne frowned not being able to think of anything helpful about Earth. Harry sighed and just shook his head.

“I’ll show you later. For now have a look around but stick together until I get back from waking up the other three ships. Alex, can you go back to the Prism in case Reggie contacts us. He’s probably wondering where we’ve gotten to. I only told him we were going to pick some things up.” Harry suggested and left them to it for the time being.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Two days later

Harry hung in space above the moon at the pre-programmed coordinates for Plaides, Zeus, Icarus and Achilles to meet before they set off towards Vetegal. They were all in the Prism or the Serenity and wouldn’t dock on the Plaides as soon as they were settled onto their new course, using one of the cargo bays so they could continue preparations on the way to Vetegal.

The worst news had arrived just the day before and although the others had wanted to power up and go right then and there Harry had held back, wanting to make sure the ships were capable of lifting off without a hitch and although the last twelve hours had been heartbreaking to him he couldn’t rush these ships. They were titans, slow to wake and slow to move but with a punch like nothing else. Capable of flattening mountains.

Reggie had called with the bad news. What had to be eighty of the Alliance’s ships had been spotted, along with the ship that Harry knew the Ghouls were on, in deep space. The ship that had spotted them had sent out a wide beam emergency message. Over the next couple of hours the ship had sent all of the information its sensors could glean from the armada of ships but after a three hour chase it had been overrun by three of the Alliances frigates and blown apart. Too late for the Alliance to hit Vetegal by surprise but the freighter hadn’t even managed to get a shot off. Reggie had received the message and sent it straight onto Harry but it was delayed by almost two days between being sent and getting to Harry.

The Alliance armada was heading through a rather unused section of space and it had only been pure luck that had given them away but they would arrive in Vetegal not long before Harry assuming he didn’t have any delays. Harry had quickly told Reggie to tell everyone with a capable ship to make orbit and start heading in their direction. They’d amass and attack the Alliance armada from out of the system’s asteroid field where the presence of the four megaliths wouldn’t be spotted until the last moment. Harry couldn’t afford for the ships already on Vetegal to be wiped out before Harry arrived with the main weapons. Anyone that couldn’t leave the planet were already heading for the large cities and although Harry knew that they’d either be bombarded from space or attacked on the ground by Ghouls he didn’t have a choice. The Alliance had reacted quickly and struck straight at his base world, the only built up and successful planet not under their thumb and Harry was working as fast as he could.

“Plaides and the Zeus are powering up to full power.” Alex reported. “Jesus that’s a lot of power.” Luke glanced over at Alex’s screen which had the basic readouts from the four ships and the power output from two had just leapt through the roof. He whistled through his teeth as the Achilles and Icarus powered up as well. “All four lifting off the surface. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Alex told him.

Harry angled the Prism so that they could see the planet and the four bright lights of the four ships could easily be seen. Without atmosphere they were merely powering away from the surface and soon the ships themselves could be seen. “That’s awesome.” Luke chuckled.

“Down boy.” Alex told him with a laugh.

“Whelp.” Luke ruffed Alex’s hair getting an astonished yelp from him.

“Not you too!” Alex whined.

“They’re settling onto course.” Harry interrupted taking the situation more seriously. In truth he was rather emotional. He’d sworn after the last of his friends had died that he’d never use these. It was too painful and he knew that pain was evident in his voice.

“Oh, Harry.” Luke gasped and moved to stand behind his chair. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around him. “I didn’t think about that.”

“I just wish it wasn’t just us out here.” Harry sighed.

“Maybe you should make some more then.” Alex spoke up and although he had a smile on his lips when Harry looked at him he couldn’t work out if he was serious or not. There’d been people through the centuries that he’d wished he could turn so he didn’t have to say goodbye to them but that was selfish and he’d never done it.

“That’s definitely a sight I’ll never regret living to see.” Luke whispered as the four ships settled into a formation almost like a fighter formation with the Plaides in the lead, the Zeus and Achilles on either side and a few miles behind and then finally the Icarus settled right behind the Plaides at about ten miles. Harry drove the Prism forwards as if about to ram the Plaides but then angled her up to fly over her surface. He flew the whole fifteen miles of the small fleet and then swung around to settle on the Icarus’ side before speeding up as the Serenity came onto his own beam.

“Serenity to Prism. You know how to pick ‘em.” Malcolm told him.

Harry just let that comment slide and angled up to gain height on the ships which were about to kick in their engines and Harry wanted to be in and settled before they began to accelerate. “Prism to Serenity. Settle down behind me in the main cargo hold.” Harry ordered even as he saw the bay on the top of the Plaides sliding open. It was small compared to the entire ship but still large enough to fit his ship in three times. The Serenity almost looked like a gnat in comparison. He slowly lined up and then eased the Prism in and as he landed Alex brought up one of the hull cameras and watched the Serenity enter above them and then switched to one of the stern ones to watch her land. Harry powered down and sent a signal to the Plaides’ ‘auto management system’ and the cargo bay door began to shut above them. Harry completed the power down but left most of the systems online since they’d all be sleeping onboard their own ships. The living quarters on these ships weren’t in a suitable state.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

The Intarea

“Admiral, the ground forces are moving on the cities.” The Lieutenant didn’t seem to want to say what the ground forces were.

“Any resistance?” The Admiral asked.

“Quite severe.” The Lieutenant frowned. “They had plenty of warning like we thought. I don’t think they’ll be able to withstand a prolonged attack however.”

“Better the Ghouls than our own troops.” The Admiral nodded. At least their Prime Minister had had the wisdom to think of something like these Ghouls and it was a shame that the monster who was based on this world had turned him insane like he had. That Vampire.

“Still no sign of any space capable ships, not in orbit or on the planet’s surface.” The Lieutenant frowned.

“Don’t fret, Lieutenant.” The Admiral asked glancing around at the fifty people around the control deck of the massive carrier. “Even if they plan to surprise us from the asteroid field they can do nothing to our fleet. This person has united all of their ships to face us but it will just mean that we can wipe them all out in one go. He is doing us a favour.”

The Admiral didn’t see the concerned look on the Lieutenant’s face. The man was more worried about when the other shoe would drop.

“Admiral! Ships coming through the asteroid field, we didn’t see them in the shadows.” One of the men on the scanners called out.

“That’s not unexpected.” The Admiral said smoothly. “Call the scouts back from the asteroid field and manoeuvre the fleet into position.”

“Sir! The scout ships aren’t responding.” A man called out after a brief pause. “We don’t have their signals.”

“Destroyed already?” The Admiral frowned and turned to look out of the control deck windows at the distant glittering of the asteroid field. He could feel the ship moving away from the planet and could see two cruisers take up a defensive position in front of them. “When will the enemy fleet emerge from the asteroid field?”

“We’ve got two ships in the open space between us and the fleet. Holding off.” One of the men reported. “A military cargo vessel and one of those little Fireflies.”

“A military cargo vessel?” The Admiral turned to them. “One of ours?”

“It’s got a merchant signature.” The man told him. “I don’t know where they came from. Our system registered them late. They must have been the ones that destroyed our scout ships.”

“Sir! Ships coming out of the asteroid field!” A man said with a shaky voice. “Hundreds of them and...”

“Standby to fire!” The Admiral yelled before turning to the man. “And what?”

“I...” The man swallowed. “The computer doesn’t know what they are, Sir!”

“Doesn’t know what what are?” The Admiral pressed.

“Four ships, Sir.” The man stood up. “They’re huge, sir. Three times the size of this ship.”

“That’s not possible.” The Admiral spun to the window where hundreds of lights flickered through space but his eyes could easily find the four new ships by the massive glow from their engines. Even as he watched he saw a flicker of red light from some sort of close in laser weapons system. They were so big they were having to take out asteroids to clear a path through. “Get me target locks on those ships and tell the fleet to open...”

“Sir!” A man cried but the warning was too late. The only warning they got was a bright flash of blue-white light.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

A few minutes earlier

“Harry.” Alex stood at his shoulder waiting. The control consoles for the engine spaces was on the control deck so he and Harry could wait together and since there was only a few people on the enormous ship it stopped them from getting lonely. Not that they had much time for that. “You ready for this?”

“Of course.” Harry nodded. “It’s been a while since I was in a war though.”

“How long?” Alex asked.

“Well the last one like this with two clear sides has to be the Purification War.” Harry shrugged. “That was more covert than this though. We were hitting major targets as small groups not whole fleets like this.”

“We’re coming into range.” Alex announced glancing at a side screen.

“All vessels this is the Plaides, clear the space between us and the enemy fleet. Don’t cross in front of us for any reason. The space will remain charged and may detonate your explosives.” Harry warned. “Zeus, Achilles and Icarus, charge the main weapon and fire on the largest ship directly ahead of you.”

“Maybe we should target the small ships that are going to shoot at us first?” Zoe commented from her place piloting the Achilles.

“Do what he says, Zoe.” Malcolm’s voice spoke up from the Icarus.

Harry pulled the control for the main weapon on the weapons console and began powering up the main weapon and watched as it charged up. The main propulsion on board charged energy and thrust it back out of the ship, propelling it on its way but by inverting the propulsion tubes and storing the charged energy it could be released from the front of the ship, travelling nearly at the speed of light, releasing massive amounts of energy against whatever it hit first. It had the added side effect of detonating explosives in the region as well.

“Fully charged, Harry.” Alex told him. “And it’s starting to effect the structural integrity.”

“I know.” Harry nodded and checked one last time that the, now stationary, Plaides was headed straight for the enemy carrier and fired. The release from the front of the ship was almost invisible but Harry’s eyes could track it by the way the energy warped the light coming from the enemy ships and the planet. The edge of the attack hit one of the Cruisers and tore it apart but the rest hit right in the centre of the carrier. There was a bright flash of light as the energy detonated and after a second the carrier began to break up. Small explosions littering the surface.

A couple of seconds later Harry spotted three more of the energy pulses striking the larger ships and in all five of the enemy ships were destroyed without any conventional weapons being fired. Not since the Prism run by Luke, with the Serenity to assist her, with River at the helm, had snuck forwards using the cloaking systems and taken out the scout ships with mines and missiles.

Harry rerouted the rest of the energy down through the propulsion tube so it didn’t feedback and damage the weapon and the Plaides headed forwards again, catching up to the slowly moving fleet of allied ships which, after witnessing that attack, were keeping well clear of the fronts of the large ships.

“All ships, engage only the smaller ships.” Harry ordered. “We will deal with the larger ships.”

With his order the smaller ships accelerated and within seconds missiles were flying between the fleets. Harry began charging the main weapon but it would take about two minutes to fully charge. In the mean time he just slowed the ship down to stay out of the main attack and the other three ships did the same, lingering in high orbit while the fleets battled in mid and low orbit. They had a few ships with them which moved lower to intercept enemy ships trying to head to them but the few missiles that got through were intercepted by missiles from the large ships or with the close-in point defence lasers. Systems that any large ship had but that hadn’t done the enemy ships much good against the PESs main weapons.

Harry fired again just after the Icarus fired but couldn’t fire at the largest ship remaining, a command troop ship, because if it dodged the strike would hit within blast range of Shar-Bank. The Cruiser he’d aimed at exploded along with half a dozen small fighters and a dozen missiles flying through space. The Achilles and Zeus fired almost a minute later and now every thirty seconds one of them were firing, picking off whatever they could hit.

“All Central Alliance vessels, this is Harry Potter-Ker Tal of the Planetary Evacuation Ship Plaides. This battle is out of your hands. Surrender now or you will be completely wiped out.” Harry’s eyes were drawn slightly to the right as one of the enemy cruisers fired missiles, slamming them into one of the larger cargo ships and destroying it. “Your battle is lost. Jettison any remaining Ghouls into space and return to your homes. If you do not we will destroy all of your vessels and then travel to the Central Planets and destroy your capital world.”

Harry was bluffing but the Alliance ships probably didn’t want to take that risk. Harry’s fingers hovered over the key required to power up the weapon again but he closed his fist when a beep told him that he had an incoming message. “It’s the Cruiser just forward of our position. Your next target I think.” Alex told him before accepting the call.

“Harry Potter-Ker Tal, if you’re really that person.” The voice told him. “Stand your vessels down and move out of conventional weapons range and we will destroy the Ghouls remaining on our ships and leave orbit and return home.”

“That’s not possible.” Harry ordered before opening the communication up so that all vessel could hear him. “All resistance vessels, enter atmosphere and clean up the Ghouls on the surface. Destroy any Alliance vessels that do not surrender within the atmosphere. All vessels remaining in orbit are to pull back out of missile range until the Alliance vessels leave. Be aware, Alliance vessels, that our high powered weapons can hit you at four times the range previously observed. Do not attempt anything hostile.”

“That is acceptable.” The voice told him from the Alliance Cruiser. It took a moment but Harry watched as about half of his own allied ships headed through the Alliance fleet and down into the atmosphere to protect the cities and start to destroy the Ghouls. The rest of the ships began moving back towards the Plaides, Zeus, Achilles and Icarus forming a wall watching the Alliance ships which grouped together. As Harry watched he started seeing rescue pods being ejected and targeted by missiles, destroying them one by one.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

End Chapter