Beyond the Divide Book 3

Available from Amazon.com

Against the backdrop of Known-space, 17,000 years after the epic collapse of the Second Interstellar Empire, the diverse star nations of Known-space know they’ll have to fight or die.

Trisha Cadwalder, ex-covert operative of the Solarian League, leads her small fleet on a harrowing mission beyond the divide. They barely make it back with the critical intelligence they’ve uncovered. The news she brings isn’t good. The enemy from beyond the divide has overwhelming numerical superiority compared to the combined fleets of Known-space.

Allied with Conrad Gordon, the future of Known-space depends on clever tactics and their leadership if they’re to have a chance of saving known civilization from the hostile alien civilization that will soon be attacking from Beyond the Divide.

Focal Point — Chapter 1 Conrad Catches Up

Admiral Trisha Cadwalder’s heart sank as her ship inexorably reported its status through her implants. Shields were barely holding at sixteen percent, hyper-capability was now completely offline. A full third of her ship was dead, systems and crew both. They would have a brief respite, no more than eleven minutes, before the next wave of enemy fighters got within range. Hell’s Fury was technically a Solarian League light cruiser, although at this point her offensive and defensive systems were more powerful than those of a heavy cruiser just a few short years ago.

From this distance, tactical couldn’t tell whether it was a dreadnought or something even larger that was launching the deadly little fighters but in all practicality it made no difference. The enemy capital ship was staying well out her weapon’s range. She gave a brief snort as she thought, As if they had anything to worry about.

Her crew picked off the first wave of fighters, despite the fighter’s higher tech level with no causalities, but with moderate damage to the drives and significant reduction of Fury’s offensive capability. The second wave nearly destroyed them. She doubted they would survive a third. Those little craft were blazingly fast, remarkably agile, and boasted shielding far beyond what one expected in fighter. True, their weapons lagged behind their other technology but if she couldn’t hit them, they could and would tear her down.

She had to assume that the advanced disrupter beam technology the enemy’s larger ships hosted didn’t lend itself to being scaled down for fighter use. That was fortunate. If these ships had been outfitted with disrupters, Fury wouldn’t have survived the first wave. These little ships carried only one missile and surprising intense primary beams. A single fighter could have never breached her shields. Sixty impacting at the same time was enough to stress bring those shields down. Her crew struggled mightily, if ultimately futilely, to bring as much of the ship back in the minutes that remained to them. She was out of strategies. The next battle would be a slug fest as her ship did its best to swat the angry little hornets that she knew would ultimately sting it to death.

In the back of her mind, as yet unspoken, she was accepting the realization that she had underestimated the enemy. They were still testing the waters. These fighter squadrons were new. Oh, they may have had them for centuries, but they had never been used on her side of the Divide, the area referred to by her civilization as Known-space.

Of course, that had been the Bakor modus-operandi since the start. Small, isolated attacks. Determining not only the capabilities of the enemy but also their enemies determination. Seventeen thousand years ago, the Bakor used the same tactics, testing the might of the Second Empire. Determining they had a war machine capable to destroying the Empire, they launched a massive attack through the divide. Heedless of their own losses, they threw ship after ship at Imperial defenses in a surprise attack. The Bakor were badly hurt, but they brought down the Empire.

A last ditch effort by the Empire, called the ‘Black Fleet’, launched a counterattack. No records existed of the composition of that fleet. Very few even mentioned it at all. Those ships and crews never returned from what they must of known was a suicide mission. But they scared the Bakor, giving the reemerging civilizations of Known-space seventeen thousand years to rediscover lost technologies.

Trisha led her ship and her crew into a trap set by the Bakor, specifically crafted to catch them. Or someone very much like them. The only explanation was that she was observed taking her fleet covertly deep into enemy space and they had deduced her return course. Or equally likely, with the sheer number of ships these people had, they picketed the whole damn Divide, that dangerous curtain in hyperspace hindering transit from her own Known-space to the hostile alien civilization on the other side. Shaking her head sadly, she looked around her bridge. Good people all, they didn’t deserve to die, futilely, now, without cause. “Lieutenant Raine, hail the enemy, and tell them we’re surrendering. Ensign Forbes, drop shields. Lieutenant Wolham, power down weapons. We’ve taken enough punishment, people.”

Moments later, Rain stated, “Ma’am, they’re not acknowledging our surrender. I, um, I think they’re laughing.”

With a quickly muttered, “Damn”, so low that only her exec heard it, Admiral Trisha Cadwalder ordered, “Shields and weapons, bring them back online. Let’s see how many of those fighters we can take out this time!”

The longer range of her weapons allowed her to pick off a number of the little ships before the swarm came within their own fire envelope. At that point Hell’s Fury shuddered as she began to take hits. Only a few at first, which even the depleted shields could handle. But as more of the fighters englobed her the density of the fire would increase. She did not understand the unknown bogey’s motivation. He was wildly expending ships and men, when the dreadnought alone could catch and squash her with almost zero risk now that her hyper-drive was out. It was almost as though they were testing her tactics against the swarms of fighters, testing her to destruction. It seems to be what they do.

It should be possible, she grimly reflected, for her to personally save her ship and crew. Through a trick of genetics she possessed the powers of a god. Literally. She had used them once before. Although at the time she hadn’t realized she did anything, she no longer had any doubt that was the case. But those freaky abilities hadn’t come with a user manual and she didn’t have a clue how to bring them into play. That one time, she exercised them in a moment of unbearable stress. She supposed there was a bare possibility that if her ship was being vaporized around her…

In less than the blink of an eye reality shifted and magic entered the universe. One instant, Hell’s Fury was fighting a losing battle against the forty-two remaining fighters. Seconds later, space was clear. Trish’s implants as well as the forward screens showed forty-two nearly simultaneous fireballs dissipating into the surrounding space. The silence on the bridge was complete for three full seconds. Then the cheering broke out. Her curt command cut through the noise, “Stations, people!” And then, “We didn’t do that! What the hell just happened?” Unspoken, her thought continued, “And I didn’t do it either.”

Captain Hosta, manning tactical, stated, “The only ships on sensors are us and the enemy, Admiral.”

Alarms went off all over Fury as the FTL sensors registered a hyperlaunch from the distant enemy. “Counter-measures,” Trish commanded, although, in reality it was next to impossible to stop or confuse a hyper-missile. This one popped into normal space barely long enough to register on Fury’s sensors before detonating in a soul shaking cataclysm of raw fury. In those nano seconds before the wave front crashed against the vestiges of her ship’s shields, the cloaked ship the missile impacted was visible to her sensors.

It was small a small ship, relatively speaking; less than twenty percent the size of Fury. The rakish lines and dead black hull gave it a sinister appearance. It absorbed, or shrugged off, the destructive blast from the hyper-missile and immediately launched at an unbelievable velocity on a heading directly toward the Ho’ken dreadnought before again vanishing from her ship’s sensors.

The shocked silence on the bridge was broken, this time, by Captain Anderson who, with a blank expression on her face, exclaimed, “Awesome.”

The admiral flipped on the all ship broadcast, and stated, “All hands. We seem to have a reprieve, perhaps even a rescue. Nonetheless, our top priorities at this moment are our people and to get this ship put back together. If there are injured in your area, do what you can for them. If the injuries are serious, notify the medical team. Keep at it. Cadwalder out.” Then to her bridge crew, “Let’s try to identify that ship.”

Anderson spoke up. “I know what it is; at least I think I do.” She looked around at her fellows. “Think history. Only one class of ship has ever existed that might be able to do what we just saw. We’ve just seen a ghost, a ship that can’t exist. That can only be a Rapier; a Second Empire Rapier. She frowned. “And it’s taking on a modern, state of the art dreadnought. Bastards don’t have a hope in hell of surviving.”

Despite the intensity of the situation, Trisha Cadwalder smiled as she thought, Conrad. You caught up. Again.

Across the bridge, Captain Hosta reported, “Jane confirms. Closest match to any known class of vessel is a Second Empire Rapier.” He frowned, adding, “Jane further concedes that all data concerning the Rapier class is unreliable. No one has ever seen one.” To Anderson, he said, “You’re suggesting a seventeen thousand year old ship just saved our bacon? If you’re right, I don’t know, they might survive an attack on the dreadnought. They were reputed to be pretty tough.” He paused, shaking his head. “Tough? What am I saying? We just saw it take a hyper-missile belly on.”

Focal Point is available from Amazon.com