“Boppers at thirty percent and charging…”
A blip on the radar screen. Then another. And another.
“Boppers at forty percent…”
She accessed one of the telescopic cameras and zoomed for a closer look. Just as the profile on the radar screen suggested, the blips belonged to a group of Chariots: the blob-like machines that served multiple roles in Voggoth’s army ranging from attack fighters to transports to bombers. They could certainly inflict damage on the Chrysaor, but nothing to be overly concerned about.
“Boppers at sixty percent…”
The flying blobs approached from the west and flew around the Leviathan, just below the handful of storm clouds that had followed the giant’s retreat from the front. The things flew in tight formation and slowed to nearly a stop in the airspace between the battling behemoths.
“Boppers at seventy percent, stand by to fire…”
Kristy expected the ships to use their rapid-fire guns or perhaps launch some kind of missile. What they actually did fell under the heading of ‘unexpected.’
The Chariots crashed together, one after another.
No, that description did not exactly fit. That’s what they appeared to do to Kristy’s eye. They did not exactly crash. They flew into each other one at a time, their blob-ish forms attached like droplets splashing together except they stayed stuck together. One by one the Chariots merged, creating one large blob from a series of smaller ones.
“What the hell?”
Kristy decided the Leviathan could wait. Her fingers interacted with the touch screen in rapid succession, accessing the forward defenses menu category Anti-Air, sub-menu ‘missile defenses.’
Select: Launch bay Bow — 4
Ordnance select: AMRAAM (quantity remaining: 4).
Ordnance loading standby-loading complete.
Arm warhead: Yes — No.
Caution: Warhead ARMED.
Input target acquisition source.
Target acquired from radar lock. Confirm target: Yes — No.
Launch: Yes — No.
The Chariots ceased merging and hung in the air as if catching their collective breath.
Launch.
The missile shot away from a tube embedded in the bow of the dreadnought.
The blob of Chariots rotated, fast. Faster. Spinning like a warped top while still hovering in the sky. A glowing halo of energy formed around mass.
The missile closed.
Kristy did not wait; she loaded air-to-air AMRAAMs into the other three forward launch bays and hurried to fire. She moved a moment too slow.
The Chariots exploded. Not in shrapnel; at least not entirely. More important, they exploded with energy: a ring of crackling blue power that slammed into and coated the dreadnought like a rogue wave sweeping across the deck of a boat. As the wall of energy moved from bow to stern, flashes and bolts of blue and green sparked from the deck plates and warned of more sinister chain reactions within.
The blast enveloped and then passed the bridge and tower section. Electronic work stations flickered; some shot sparks. Video screens filled with dead air before stabilizing; the hair on the back of Kristy’s neck stood straight. The room felt electrically charged.
Then it was gone. The work stations returned to normal operation. Monitors showed what they meant to show. With the exception of several blown but easily replaceable fuses, the Chrysaor felt-felt…
Kristy could not immediately identify her feeling of uneasiness. The Chariots were gone. Ahead of the ship waited the Leviathan, its grotesque skyscraper-sized body stood still like a morbid statue.
Captain Kaufman checked the main batteries.
Fifty percent.
What?
Forty-five percent.
Warning lights flashed across her screens in succession. One stood out above the rest: “DANGER: Gravity Generator Magnetic Field Compromised”.
A frantic voice from the engineering section-located at the bottom rear of the ship-yelled into her earpiece confirming the words on her display: “The grav generators are off-line! Jesus-shit they just cut out!”
Everyone on the bridge-everyone throughout the ship-felt it in their bellies like riders on a rollercoaster cresting that first big drop. The entire craft started to fall. Kristy’s stomach lurched toward her throat.
“Emergency boosters!”
She swerved around in the command module, located the set of controls every dreadnought commander feared to need, and quickly flicked a series of toggles. A hundred small round plates fell away from the ship’s undercarriage and row upon row of rocket engines burst to life with fire and smoke.
The thrust of the emergency engines sounded a like a line of explosions from beneath the mighty ship. That feeling of descending slowed but did not end. The altimeter ticked under 1,000 feet and continued. The back-up rockets were never meant to keep the incredible weight of the ship aloft; they were meant as a supplement to the grav generators in the case of emergency.
Main Forward Battery Energy Level: 30 %.
Kristy-in an act driven as much by spite as anything else-punched the ‘fire’ button. Red strands of power shot out from the bow, across the sky, and into the front of the hideous beast.
The Chaktaw convoy stood ready to move. Nina saw the small army waiting in rows across the eight lanes of Interstate 64 including Lizards the size of elephants serving as pack animals, motorized tricycles with huge wheels, some kind of missile trucks toward the rear of the formation, and hundreds of infantry huddled in groups conversing, snacking, and checking gear.
She sensed unease in the air. Maybe even confusion among their ranks. Maybe the same feeling of oppression her people felt when under The Order’s unnatural storm clouds.
The alien soldiers eyed her with a mixture of suspicion and awe. They stared through in a way that made her feel they regarded her more as a strange curiosity than a reviled enemy. Perhaps they did not consider her worthy of their contempt; an over confidence she planned to make them pay for. Indeed, her escort gave her only a quick look for weapons and hence her knife remained hidden. She did not know if their lack of a thorough search indicated laziness or if they took it for granted that she would act honorably and respect the truce.
A cluster of homes on wooded lots sat just off the highway to the south. Her Chaktaw escort led her through the surprised formation of fighters to one lone tent seemingly made of canvass or something very much like it assembled in a driveway next to the remains of a collapsed duplex.
The tent appeared hastily constructed for their meeting. Perhaps some kind of tradition among the aliens, she did not know but she did care: killing the Chaktaw leader would be a lot easier out of view from the rest of their army. It might even give her a chance to take several more with her before they realized their mistake in inviting the wolf into their hen house.
Her escort pulled a drawstring and motioned her inside the tent. A small oval table made of what resembled plastic sat in the center of the chamber. A solitary glowing orb hung on a rope or string from the ceiling creating a cone of light over the center but left the outer rim of the interior in shadows.
The escort withdrew, closing the flap.
Two Chaktaw remained inside: One at the table who studied Nina in a curious manner. His eyes widened, then shrunk to slits; the corners of his mouth changed between something like a frown to something like a grin, but not a friendly one. His whiskers twitched and his hands tugged at a plain brown tunic. He plainly did not know what to make of her. Either he was confused to find her group so far behind the wrong side of the battle line or her audacity at daring to challenge his advance annoyed him. Whatever the case, she held his complete attention.
The second Chaktaw remained in one of the dark corners of the tent sitting on a chair. Nina could not make out this one’s features but pegged him or her for a bodyguard but if that bodyguard held a weapon it was not
