Battlegroup Vega Read online

  Battlegroup Vega

  Genosimilators universe

  Anders Raynor

  Author’s disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Muon Publishing, 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-9161472-1-8

  Copyright © Anders Raynor 2019.

  All rights reserved.

  Visit AndersRaynor.com

  Part One: Dr. Adrian Darus

  01

  Hold the line

  Dr. Adrian Darus knew that life on Earth had not been destroyed. That knowledge alone placed him among the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy. A hero to some, a traitor to others, he was aware of his controversial status.

  He stepped onto the platform, his gaze wandering through the ranks of officers and crew assembled in the hangar of the ASC Defiance. Everyone on the ship wore a combat suit in preparedness for the battle they knew inevitable.

  “We all heard the cautionary tale about a planet called Terra,” he started, trying to keep his voice firm despite his anxiety. “According to this tale, the Terrans were greedy, violent, and irresponsible. They polluted their world and exhausted its natural resources, turning it into a toxic, uninhabitable wasteland. They killed their own planet and condemned themselves to extinction.”

  Adrian paused for a deep breath. His speech was broadcast to the entire fleet, and tens of thousands of people were attentive to his every word.

  “The propaganda machine of the Galactic State wants everyone to believe that the Taar’kuun are more enlightened than the proverbial Terrans,” he resumed. “The Taar’kuun are peaceful and wise, and they treat the ecosystems of the worlds they colonized with respect. That’s why their civilization has endured for more than a million years. As a xenobiologist, I wanted to find out if the story about Terra was true. What I’ve discovered…”

  Adrian swallowed hard. His throat was burning. Admiral Winsley, who stood next to him, gave him an encouraging nod.

  “I’ve discovered that the Terrans did not perish in some ecological cataclysm,” Adrian continued with renewed energy. “The Taar’kuun assimilated them.”

  Everyone in the fleet knew that, but Adrian assumed they wanted to hear the details from an expert in genosimilation.

  “Don’t underestimate the power of retroviruses. They change your genome and can transform you into something you don’t want to be. That’s what happened to our ancestors. The Terrans didn’t stand a chance; by the time they found out alien invaders had infected them with an insidious virus, there was nothing they could do. They mutated until they became indistinguishable from the Taar’kuun. The virus also wiped out the memories of their human lives, and false memories were implanted.

  “Five years ago, I found a way to revert genosimilation and restore the human genome. I called this process retroforming. I didn’t intend to use the retrovirus I’ve designed on anyone other than myself, but due to unforeseen circumstances it spread to thousands of worlds, and billions of Taar’kuun descended from the Terrans returned to being human.”

  Adrian glanced at the giant holo-screen deployed along a wall of the hangar. For now, it showed only the void of space dotted with stars, but a hostile fleet could appear at any moment.

  “Always remember this—you’re all descendants of the Terrans. You’re not Taar’kuun slaves, members of an inferior caste. You deserve the right to carry the genes of your ancestors and live in accordance with their values.”

  “Well spoken, Dr. Darus,” Admiral Winsley said, turning to face the ranks of his subordinates. “The Taar’kuun violated the genome of our ancestors and deprived them of their identity. Remember why we fight, people. We fight for our freedom. We fight for the preservation of our culture.”

  Winsley’s powerful voice carried throughout the hangar even without electronic amplification. All eyes were riveted on him. His navy-blue uniform of the Alliance Space Forces—ASF—sported a golden laurel and four stars on his shoulders. His white hair shone under the light. His head still bore the traces of Taar’kuun morphology, in particular the dark scales that framed his face, but his voice was fully human.

  “We fight for the future of mankind,” he concluded, clenching his fist. “I want you to say it—we are human.”

  “We are human,” the crew repeated in chorus.

  “I didn’t hear you,” Winsley shouted. “We are human!”

  “WE ARE HUMAN!” This time, the voices were firm and loud.

  “I didn’t hear you!” The admiral thrust his fist in the air. “Who are we?”

  “WE ARE…”

  The siren bellowed, and lights in the hangar turned from blue to orange.

  “Alert, hostile carrier battlegroups inbound,” the voice of the ship’s AI droned.

  “Condition red; to battle stations!” Winsley shouted, already marching toward the nearest autopod. It was a transparent spherical vehicle designed to transport up to ten people to any location on the ship using magnetic levitation tubes.

  “I’m not good at speeches, admiral,” Adrian said, trotting to keep up with Winsley’s stride.

  “You did great, doctor.”

  “But I didn’t even have time to get to the important part—I know where Terra is.”

  The admiral gave Adrian a sharp look, without slowing his pace. “Really? You’ll tell us everything later.”

  If we survive what’s coming, Adrian thought darkly.

  The admiral entered the autopod with a dozen officers. Adrian squeezed in just before the transparent doors whooshed shut.

  “Any news about your daughter?” Winsley asked Adrian while the pod was racing through a maglev conduit toward the bridge.

  Adrian shook his head. “No, admiral. I’ve been searching for months, with little success.”

  “Our best intelligence agents are looking for her,” Winsley said. “Don’t give up hope. That’s an order.”

  “I’m not under your command, admiral,” Adrian reminded him with a mirthless smile, “but I’ll follow that order to the best of my ability.”

  Winsley’s steel-gray eyes glinted with amusement. “That’ll be more than enough.”

  The pod stopped as it reached the bridge, its doors opened, and the officers rushed to their G-seats. As soon as Adrian hopped into his assigned seat, belts automatically strapped themselves around his wrists, chest, and legs. His mind connected wirelessly to the cybernetic network of the ship via his bionic implants.

  “Four carrier battlegroups incoming, twenty-eight bioships in total,” one of the officers reported.

  “In terms of firepower, the humans are outnumbered three to one,” said the warm female voice of Adrian’s personal assistant. “You don’t stand a chance.”

  “Why do you say you?” Adrian asked within his mind. As his PA was linked to his central nervous system, she could read his thoughts. “You’re human too, Ria.”

  “Negative, Adrian,” the PA replied. “You created me by cloning your neural tissue while you were still Taar’kuun. I was grafted onto your brain before your reversion to the human genome. Technically, I’m Taar’kuun, not human.”

  Adrian sighed. “I don’t want to argue with you. Not now. I need to see what’s going on. Show me the recon drones feed.”

  Ria obeyed without another word. Now Adrian had a panoramic view of what would become the battlefield, projected onto his retinas by his implants.

  A scarlet nebula blazed in the background. The Taar’kuun ships were dark dots in the distance. Trails of plasma indicated their thrusters were shooting at full power. The Biozi�
�as the humans called the Taar’kuun—were on the hunt.

  The human warships spread out, adopting a phalanx formation, the four Artemis-class escort destroyers at the tips of the phalanx. Corvettes formed the second line of defense; their job was to protect the Defiance from enemy ordnance and starfighters.

  As most military ships of human make, the Defiance was shaped like a sword, with an elongated body and two wing-shaped structures on the sides. Making the warships long and flat made sense, as this design allowed minimal surface area exposed to enemy fire. The Defiance was a Zeus-class strategic carrier over 1.2 klicks in length, one of the biggest flagships in the ASF.

  Behind the military ships, Adrian saw a flotilla of civilian craft. As they didn’t have a jump drive, they relied on a wormhole generator ship for interstellar travel, called a tunneler, or tun. Its ring started to spin, faster and faster, charging the black hole drive.

  “Civilians are priority,” Winsley called. “We need to protect the tun until all the sub-lights are through the wormhole.”

  “The first hostile group has entered long range,” the tactical officer reported. “Delta-class missiles incoming.”

  The deltas were long-range missiles carrying devastating antimatter explosive devices. Each one of them could take a warship out of action in a single blow.

  “Escort destroyers, suppressive fire at will,” Winsley ordered.

  The quick-firing guns of the Artemis unleashed a barrage of blaster bolts at the incoming ordnance. The first volley was wiped out before any of the deltas could reach their targets.

  “Are we launching fighters, admiral?” asked Vice Admiral Scar, the CO of the Defiance and second in command of the carrier battlegroup. He owed his name to a scar across his cheek, a reminder of a close encounter with a Biozi trooper.

  “Negative,” Winsley replied. “I don’t want to risk the lives of my pilots unless absolutely necessary. Keep the squadrons on standby.”

  “Admiral, the Biozi strategy doesn’t make sense,” the tactical officer pointed out. “They’re accelerating instead of slowing down. If they continue, they’ll have to brake hard while entering the optimal range of our ACBs.”

  Adrian was sufficiently familiar with military lingo to know that ACBs stood for anti-capital blaster cannons, the most powerful medium-range weapons in the ASF arsenal. They propelled bolts of ionized plasma using electromagnetic fields. In other words, they shot miniature suns.

  “Who’s the moron commanding the bugs?” Winsley muttered with a frown, staring at the 3D map displayed in the middle of the bridge. Then he threw a glance at Adrian. “Why are they flying to their deaths? Any theories, doctor?”

  “Zoom on their ships, please,” Adrian asked.

  One of the tactical holo-screens displayed the feed from a stealthy recon drone that followed the attacking Biozi battlegroup. The black carapace of the capital bioship glistened with reflections from the sun. Its 1.6-klick-long conical shape indicated it was a strategic carrier. Adrian knew it was pregnant with hundreds of Arachnid-class starfighters, boarding pods, dropships, and other biosynthetic monstrosities that haunted his nightmares. He’d spent years running from those things.

  “The Biozi wouldn’t take such risks, unless—” Adrian started, but didn’t have time to finish.

  A blast shook the Defiance. Lights flickered. He felt his seat shudder as if the carrier were caught in a cosmic storm.

  A ball of fire expanded from the starboard wing.

  Sabotage!

  The very idea that some humans could turn against their own kind and sabotage ASF ships was chilling.

  “Starboard thrusters destroyed, energy distribution compromised, cybernetics unresponsive, targeting’s down,” one of the officers reported.

  “Reroute power to port,” Scar boomed. “Reboot cybernetics. Deploy repair bots.”

  Next, one of the destroyers disappeared in a flash of light.

  “Artemis Two is gone,” the tactical officer shouted. “Our defenses have been breached. Deltas incoming!”

  Space filled with explosions. A Biozi missile rocketed toward an ASF destroyer. The missile split into eight warheads, and they all hit the ship at the same time. Its thrusters down, the destroyer barreled straight toward the Defiance, propelled by the force of the blasts.

  “Starboard full thrust!” Scar barked.

  The carrier jolted to the side as its maneuvering thrusters lit up, shooting spears of energy into space. The blazing destroyer missed the Defiance by a few meters and continued on its trajectory.

  With two destroyers out of action and the flagship badly damaged, the human battlegroup seemed helplessly outgunned. Common sense dictated withdrawal, but the tunneler was still charging, and Adrian knew that Winsley wouldn’t abandon civilians.

  The admiral clenched his jaw, his eyes fixed on the enemy battlegroup displayed on the 3D map. “Bring it on, I’ve got a surprise of my own for you,” he growled.

  A wormhole formed above the Defiance and spewed an Ares-class cruiser, a 600-meter-long heavy hitter specializing in medium-range combat. It had twelve 400-mm ACBs capable of piercing the thickest carapaces of bioships.

  “Target the nearest hostile,” Winsley ordered. “Between third and fourth rib—that’s their weak spot.”

  As the tactical officer had predicted, the Biozi ships were now decelerating using both their thrusters and their gravity generators. They couldn’t engage in evasive maneuvers while performing a hard brake like that.

  “ACBs hot, target locked,” the weapons officer said, his hands moving quickly over the control panel of his station.

  Winsley’s eyes narrowed. “Bleed them.”

  All remaining ASF ships opened fire. Blaster bolts punched through the carapace of an enemy destroyer, shattered its bones, and incinerated entire decks. Luminescent clouds of bioplasma leaked from the ship’s wounds.

  As soon as the first Biozi destroyer was out of action, the guns of the ASF battlegroup targeted the next one and shot another salvo.

  “Hostiles are launching fighters,” the tactical officer said.

  “What’s the status of the tun?” Winsley asked.

  “Black hole drive fully charged,” the officer replied.

  The tunneler shot a quantum laser into empty space to create an artificial wormhole. The scientific term for it was an Einstein-Rosen bridge, and it allowed ships to jump from one system to another in an instant.

  “Winsley to all warships,” the admiral addressed the battlegroup. “We need to hold a few more minutes. Make me proud, soldiers. Hold the line!”

  Adrian heard a beep coming from his G-seat, and the seat belts retracted. He remained seated, thinking it a malfunction.

  “Dr. Adrian Darus, you’re under arrest for high treason,” an authoritative female voice said.

  Adrian jumped to his feet and turned around. A tall female in dark body armor was glaring at him, her hand set on the grip of her holstered sidearm. The insignia on her shoulders indicated she was a major in the AIS, Alliance Intelligence Service.

  “Are you out of your damn mind, major?” Winsley snapped at her. “You arrest him in the middle of a battle?”

  “I follow direct orders from the Secretary of Defense,” the major bit back. “Dr. Darus is coming with us. Don’t make me pull my gun, admiral. I’m authorized to use lethal force, if necessary.”

  The ASF marines protecting the bridge aimed their rifles at her. But she didn’t come alone; four SpecOps soldiers in black body armor stepped forward, rapid-fire blaster at the ready.

  Adrian froze and held his breath.

  02

  Hero or traitor?

  Human ships battled the Biozi fleet at close range. In this chaotic, brutal, and merciless confrontation, they’d destroyed the first Biozi battlegroup, but the other three were mostly intact and pressed the attack. All civilian ships had jumped, and the tunneler disappeared last into the wormhole funnel it’d created.

  “I’m taking Dr. Darus to
my ship,” the AIS major said, her tone calm, yet tinged with threat. “Don’t get involved in this, admiral. You’ve been harboring a known fugitive; you’re lucky I’m not charging you with treason.”

  Winsley gave out an irritated sigh and shook his head. “Sorry, doctor. I can’t stop her, but I’ll do everything in my power to get you out.” He turned to the marines and ordered them to stand down.

  Adrian stepped toward the major, feeling nauseous as if suffering from space sickness. The SpecOps soldiers surrounded him, but didn’t cuff him; however, it was clear they would use force if he resisted or tried to bolt.

  “Activate the black hole drive,” Winsley ordered the navigation officer.

  “Negative, sir,” the navigator replied. “The hostiles have deployed a jump inhibitor.”

  The admiral paused for a couple of seconds, probably cursing in silence and weighing his options. “Launch fighters. Take down that thing at all costs.”

  “Boarding pods incoming,” the tactical officer warned.

  “Scar to all marines, prepare to repel boarding squads,” the CO of the Defiance thundered. “I want a defense perimeter around the bridge—no one gets through!”

  What was commonly called the bridge was the command center, and it was hidden deep within the structure of the ship. The boarding strike team would have to fight its way through a maze of corridors to get to it. ASF marines in dark-blue body armor were taking positions in the corridor. Adrian ordered his PA to engage the visor of his helmet and activate the air filters. That was standard procedure in case of boarding, as the Biozi were known to use toxic gases and bioweapons.

  “The maglev network is down,” the major said. “We’ll have to make our way to hangar bay alpha on foot.”

  “On foot?” Adrian cried. “That’s at least two hundred meters! And what are we gonna do if we manage to get to your ship? We’re trapped—we can’t jump!”

  “Let me worry about that, doctor,” she replied. “If I were you, I’d worry about the upcoming trial, and think of a defense strategy. You know the penalty for high treason.”