“Sir?” the Avalon said, beginning to show concern.
Yen flashed a disarming smile. “I’m fine. Please let Squadron Commander Vicrux know that we should be approaching Arcendor soon. Let him know that I need all pilots suited up and in their ships within the hour.”
“Commander Vicrux is just inside if you’d like to relay the message yourself,” the Avalon offered.
“No,” Yen answered. Too many people would be inside for him to do what he truly wanted to do to Vicrux. “No, I trust that you can relay my message for me.”
Yen turned and walked back toward the elevator that would take him to the bridge. If he were lucky, Vicrux would have an accident during the battle and would save Yen the effort of having to kill him personally. If he had the time, maybe Yen would arrange a failsafe to ensure Vicrux did encounter an accident out in space. Maybe that young Avalon would be a good pilot to act as his failsafe.
He was sitting in the Captain’s chair later, contemplating the myriad of tortures he could inflict on either Vicrux or Scyant, when Tylgar began typing furiously on the navigation console. “Sir, we’re approaching the far side of the galaxy. Arcendor should be in view momentarily, but…”
“But?” Yen asked when Tylgar didn’t reply.
“But we didn’t get here first,” the Lithid said, his gravelly voice dropping. He entered the last few lines of commands into his computer and the forward display switched to a three dimensional map of the solar system. Dominating the map, a dark sun hung inert in space. Four planets away, the capital of the Alliance, Arcendor, floated into view, the capital city dominating the largest continent on the mountainous world. Hovering between the sun and Arcendor, however, over twenty red triangles flew in tight patterns between the planets, increasing their speed in preparation for battle.
“Put the Fleet on full alert!” Yen ordered as he pulled his tactical display toward him.
Red light filled the bridge as Crewmen scrambled to their battle positions. Yen began reading the relays that were arriving from the other ships around the Fleet while, simultaneously, checked the statuses of his own weapons bays and Squadron. He swore silently to himself, wishing any of his own Team had survived to take over the Squadron instead of Vicrux.
As the ships reported in, Yen noticed three ships pulling away from the rest of the Fleet. “Tylgar, identify the three ships pulling away from formation.”
“They are the Ballistae, Defiant, and Phalanx,” the pilot replied. “The three ships placed under Captains Riddell and Alcent.”
Yen contemplated opening a channel to demand why they were not engaging in the upcoming combat, but thought better. “Whatever you have planned, Keryn,” Yen growled, “it had better be damn important!”
Instead, Yen ordered the rest of the Fleet into a tight formation as they flew into the system. As they entered, he pulled up a magnified display of Arcendor. His heart hardened as he saw thick smoke filling the atmosphere of the planet, a clear sign that plasma bombs had been dropped on key cities throughout the continent. Not only had the Terrans beat them to the system, they had already destroyed the capital. Yen had no idea how many had died because of the artificial winters imposed throughout Alliance space, but he did know how many millions more would have just lost their life in a bombing of that magnitude.
Emerging from behind the third planet, the Terran Fleet broke formation and began spreading out in an attack line in front of the planet. Yen turned the Fleet to meet them head on. In retribution for destroying Arcendor, Yen now intended to see every Terran in the known universe die a painful death.
Within the bridge of the Revolution, energy started to build. Yen let his spines bristle as his anger grew. He had lost so many of his kinsmen when the suns disappeared. Many more of his mentors and teachers had been on Arcendor when it was bombed. Blue sparks ignited on the hull of the Revolution as Yen allowed his anger to spread throughout the ship. Crewman who rushed to their battle positions paused as the smell of ozone permeated the ship. His anger would bring a sweet revenge to all those losses. He couldn’t bring back his dead friends, but he would be the harbinger of the Terran’s devastation.
As the two Fleets hurtled toward each other, firing their first salvos, Yen yearned to watch the Terrans die.
CHAPTER 38:
The first barrage of rockets slammed into the Alliance Fleet shortly after it entered the galaxy. Onboard the Revolution, Yen rocked violently in the Captain’s chair as a shockwave reverberated against the hull.
“The Legacy has been destroyed,” Tylgar reported while simultaneously evading incoming missiles. “The Tyrant and Sycophant are both too badly damaged to continue the engagement and are breaking contact with the Terran Fleet.”
Yen growled in the chair as he raised his own defenses around the Revolution. Bolts of blue lightning arced from the hull, slamming into incoming rockets and deflecting them harmlessly away from the ship.
His temples pounding, Yen began barking orders to both his ship and the rest of the Fleet. “Fire at will! Consolidate your fire on the center of their formation! If we can break up their combined firepower, we might just win this war!”
With rounds exploding all around them, the Alliance Fleet quickly closed the distance between themselves and the Terran Destroyers. With lashes of psychic energy, Yen batted aside the annoying Terran fighters that got too close. The Fleet fired volleys of rockets toward the charging Terran Destroyers. Small explosions erupted sporadically amongst the enemy ships, puncturing the thick hulls. Though a couple of the Terran ships drifted listlessly away from the advancing Alliance Fleet, the others continued their advance. Hornet-like Terran fighters intermixed with the thinner Alliance fighters as they dodged in between the barreling Cruisers and Destroyers. Throughout both Fleets, the fronts of the larger ships began glowing from the heat as they passed through clouds of exploding plasma.
“Tylgar,” Yen yelled from his command position, “get us as close as possible to the Destroyer straight ahead.”
“Sir?” Tylgar asked, stealing a glance over his shoulder as the ship rattled from another close explosion. “We’ll be devastated if we get too much closer.”
Yen knew that his pilot was right. The eruptions of plasma were superheating the hull. A number of his radar antennas had already melted away under the heat, leaving blind spots throughout whole sectors of nearby space. If they continued their advance without further protection, it would only be a matter of time before the blistering plasma coursed through one of the ejection tubes and ignited the rockets within. The resulting explosion would be devastating to the Revolution. Yen, however, already had a plan to protect the ship.
“Leave that to me,” Yen hissed, his dark eyes sparkling with a faint blue glow. Reaching out, Yen let his hands settle on the cool metallic alloy of the Captain’s chair. He let his consciousness ebb from his body. Slowly, his mind wound its ways through the walls of the ship, becoming one with the wiring, piping, and passageways until, finally, he became one with the Revolution. The front view screen became his eyes while the radar antenna became his ears. Letting his power ripple through the ship as though it were his own skin, blue energy crackled over the hull and expanded until the entire Cruiser was covered in a sheen of psychic shielding.
Speaking in a hauntingly distant voice, Yen continued calling orders to Tylgar. “Fly forward at maximum speed.”