The Plasma Master

  Chapter 9

  Captain Flabbart sat back in his chair and took a sip of his carbonated meat juice. He was nervous. His fleet was shipping raw materials to the starbase Kandara, and he knew full well that the Empire had as much use for those materials as the Alliance did. Nothing had happened so far. General Marnax had assigned the Starhawk squadron to escort him, and so far that seemed to be doing the job. Everyone in the Empire, and everywhere else for that matter, was familiar with Starhawk. It was made up of the twenty-seven best starfighter pilots in the galaxy, or at least that was what the stories said. Their spacecraft were certainly state-of-the-art. Flabbart had seen video recordings of some of Starhawk’s battles, and he still was not sure he was familiar with all of the weapons the squadron had at its disposal. There was good reason to be confident in the safety of this mission.

  On the other hand, the squadron was only a starfighter squadron. The freighters had weapons, but the General had not thought the mission serious enough to send any warships along besides Iron Talon, Starhawk’s mother ship. If the Empire wanted the shipment badly enough, it could certainly muster enough firepower to put up a very formidable fight. Distance would certainly not keep them away; at maximum warp it would only take an attack fleet a few hours to reach the freighter fleet from the nearest Imperial planet. Captain Flabbart sipped his juice again. Things had gone well up to now, but there was no reason to relax yet.

  As if to punish his pessimism, the warp scanner beeped and flashed a warning light. Flabbart activated the com system. “Starhawk…”

  “We see them,” came the reply.

  On board the Iron Talon, Ambelshack Devorion turned to Nredj Holmrk, his first officer. “How many?”

  “Three destroyers and two attack cruisers,” Holmrk reported.

  Devorion smiled. “Cake.”

  After seeing Smardwurst and Nedward off on their mission, General Marnax turned his attention to the impending attack. According to Mirana Kelar he had six days. That was not much time, but he had dealt with worse situations. The problem, as always, was numbers. Two thousand warships was no small number, and it certainly wasn’t smaller than what Marnax had in response. There were, however, two points in favor of the Alliance. The first was that, as little warning as he had, Marnax would have no trouble getting whatever ships he could muster to Ergana Prime before the Imperial attack force arrived. He would be ready and waiting. The second advantage was even more important. As was usually the case, it was easier to defend a target than to destroy it, and in the case of Ergana Prime this was doubly so. Ergana was one of the most powerful members of the Alliance, and it was heavily fortified. It was equipped with a powerful shield that encompassed the entire planet, and hundreds of turbolasers and missile launchers protected the surface. It would be no easy task for the Empire to take the planet even if Marnax sent no ships at all.

  Apparently, though, it was not difficult enough to keep the Empire from trying. The reasons for the risk were clear enough. Ergana Prime was a major resource provider for the Alliance, it housed a major facility for the production and repair of starships, and it was the home of many of the Alliance’s top leaders. Marvis Harvey was born on Ergana Prime. Its loss would certainly be no small matter, and Marnax was determined to see to it that that loss did not occur.

  Harvey had begun to prepare for battle as soon as the meeting had ended, and he had not stopped since. Major Harvey was one of the most indispensable people in the Alliance. His military genius was in large part responsible for the fact that the Alliance had held out for so long. In fact, if Harvey had not joined the Alliance early on, it might have fallen apart almost immediately. Before he broke away from the Empire, Marvis Harvey had been in command of a large part of the Imperial Army. When Harvey left he took most of his command with him. In fact, over half of StarBlazer’s warships were once Imperial ships under the command of Major Harvey.

  At the moment, both Marnax and Harvey were aboard Galactron on their way to Ergana Prime, accompanied by whatever ships had been available on the way. The rest of the fleet would follow shortly. Mirana Kelar had disappeared aboard her ship, apparently wanting to check up on the Imperial fleet’s progress. Captain Devorion was still away on convoy duty but would be back in plenty of time for the battle.

  Two thousand ships. Marnax believed that, if StarBlazer won, it would very likely be a severe loss for the Empire. That was part of what he had meant when he had told Ned Simmons that the war might be over very soon. If Dark Viper had decided to make all-out assaults on major planets, there would be little room for stalemates in the weeks to come. Marnax believed he might do the same thing in the Emperor’s place. The Imperial fleet was bigger; why not take a few risks? Because, Marnax thought, I’m going to throw every one of those risks right back in your face until you crumble and fall. You’re reign is coming to a close, Dark Viper. Marnax hoped it was true.

  A day before Galactron reached Ergana Prime, Mirana Kelar returned. She stayed aboard Galactron for a time, discussing the war with General Marnax.

  “You know,” she said at one point, “there just might be a better way of coming at this than simply fighting back. Those are a lot of ships, you know.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Marnax asked.

  “For instance, you could evacuate the planet and cause a thermonuclear reaction in its core. If you planned it right, the planet might take most of the Imperial fleet with it.”

  “Sacrifice the entire planet? Don’t you think that’s a bit drastic?”

  “Maybe,” she replied, “and the Empire might just escape anyway. My point is that there are other options to consider.”

  “I’m sure Major Harvey has considered them.”

  Mirana frowned. “Major Harvey is a fool. Yes, he is experienced in combat techniques, but there are times when fighting just doesn’t make sense. Do you think that I’ve stayed alive for as long as I have by fighting every enemy I’ve met?”

  Marnax tried to read her face for some hidden meaning to what she was saying and failed. “Well, if you think of anything, let Harvey know.”

  Mirana nodded and the conversation turned to other matters, but Marnax knew that there was something on Mirana’s mind that she wasn’t letting on. That, he mused, was the story of Mirana Kelar’s life.

  Meanwhile, Marvis Harvey was pondering problems of his own. In a way he envied everyone else in the entire Alliance. All they had to do right now was sit and wait for orders to come, and then follow them. Harvey, on the other hand, had to deal with the responsibility of making sure that every one of those orders pointed StarBlazer toward victory. It was a job he had been doing for a long time and one he felt he had been born for, but at times like these it was incredibly stressful.

  Harvey was looking at a holographic, three-dimensional map of the space surrounding Ergana Prime. Battle in space was fundamentally different from battle on the surface of planets, since there was no terrain except for the ships, and since direction and speed were all relevant only in relation to something else. On planets, land formations could offer profound advantages, and other environmental conditions, such as weather, could have significant effects as well, but this was not true in space. As a result, Harvey believed that victory in space was determined by only three things. The first was numbers, and in this category StarBlazer was always at a loss. The second was experience, and there the two sides were about evenly matched, although Harvey liked to think that StarBlazer had more than a few people who put the Empire’s tactical experts to shame. But it was the third category for which Marvis Harvey was known throughout both Empire and Alliance. Harvey called it “violent creativity.” Harvey was the best there was at knowing where to place ships, when to have them do what, and what people to put where. It had won him more battles that he cared to count, and it was why he was in charge of the second most powerful fleet in the galaxy.

  No one knew who was in control of the most powerful. Dark Viper probably wanted to keep his generals’ ide
ntities secret for fear that Harvey would find out their weaknesses and exploit them. In any case, Harvey had discovered plenty of weaknesses already through experience. He supposed that the bottom line on the matter was that everyone in the Alliance trusted him, and he could never afford to let them down.

  Mirana Kelar, of course, was not technically in the Alliance, and she most certainly did not trust him. He wondered why. It was not that she thought him incompetent; he obviously was not that. What then? Harvey had absolutely no idea. Of course, he did not trust her much either. The reason for that, however, was quite clear. Mirana was a mercenary, and Harvey could think of no reason to believe that she would not betray the Alliance in an instant if offered a high enough price. Marnax trusted her, though, and Harvey supposed the General must have a good reason.

  That was another thing about Major Harvey. He trusted Gerran Marnax unconditionally. Marnax had been a superb leader while he sat on the Imperial Council, but as General of the StarBlazer Alliance he was the epitome of great leadership. More often than not the people who joined the Alliance pledged their loyalty to Marnax personally rather than to StarBlazer itself. There was a very powerful charisma about the man that Harvey could not understand and yet could not deny. He wondered what would happen if Marnax were ever killed. Probably something not good. Perhaps that was part of the reason Harvey was so determined to succeed; he believed that StarBlazer was the best thing that had happened in the Galaxy since the Aliens had been defeated, and he believed that General Marnax was undoubtedly the most important part of StarBlazer.

  This upcoming battle was going to test that determination. Harvey had won fights with worse odds than this, but every battle brought new conditions, new chances to make a fatal mistake. His enemies were learning more with each battle just like he was, and it was no easy task to stay a step ahead of them. Harvey had lost battles before too, of course, and with each one – with each victory, even – the StarBlazer Alliance lost valuable resources, while the Empire seemed to have an endless supply at its disposal.

  Harvey hoped that a victory at Ergana Prime might give him an extra advantage. The Empire would have more ships than usual there, and a few well-executed maneuvers might destroy a very large number of them. He would have to be careful, of course. He might be the best tactical mind in the galaxy, but the Empire still new very well how to put up a good fight.

  Another series of laser blasts tore into the shields of one of the freighters, and this time its shields could not hold up. The lasers were followed by a barrage of torpedoes, which tore into the ship’s hull and vaporized it in a gigantic fireball.

  Ambelshack Devorion banked away to avoid being caught in the explosion, then flipped his starfighter over and flew back through it, toward the Imperial destroyer that had fired the shots. His wingmen followed, and together they hammered away at its lateral shielding with hypercharged fusion missiles. They caused the destroyer’s shielding to glow like noonday sunlight, and the three fighters scattered to avoid the laser blasts that streaked from the enemy ship like rain. The Starhawk fighters regrouped and came about for another pass.

  One of the destroyers had been blasted apart already, and one of the attack cruisers was in critical condition. The StarBlazer fleet had lost only the one freighter. All five Anacronian warships had launched ten starfighters of their own, but by now only a third of them remained. Not a single Starhawk fighter had been seriously damaged; many had not even been hit.

  Ambelshack ordered five of his fighters to pass between two of the Imperial ships. The warships stopped firing their lasers for fear of hitting each other, and the Starhawk fighters destroyed the torpedoes fired at them just as they cleared their launch tubes. The momentary cease-fire between the two warships gave the five starfighters just enough time to pump one of the warships full of laser and missile fire. Its shields went down, two missiles buried themselves in its main power reactor, and the entire ship was blasted apart. As they evaded the explosion, the Starhawk fighters took out several more of the remaining enemy starfighters.

  Ambelshack and his two wingmen drifted toward each other until they were only a few feet apart with the bottom sides of the fighters facing each other, forming a triangle. A yellow light flared in the gap separating the ships, and the fighters pulled up and away from each other, trailing lines of yellow energy that gathered at the center of the triangle where the three lines met. A moment later the fighters disengaged their charge generators, and the lines ended. The yellow ball at the center flared sharply and flew into the other attack cruiser. The energy ball buckled the warship’s shields and tore into its engines. The energy surge caused the engines to fire at full power, and before the ship’s crew could do anything to stop it, the attack cruiser plowed forward into one of the remaining destroyers. Both ships exploded violently.

  That left one destroyer against an entire starfighter squadron. Its captain was losing heart in the battle and tried to go to warp, all the while constantly raking the space around the Starhawk fighters with laser fire, hitting nothing. He had long since given up on the freighters. There were still Imperial starfighters out there, but they would have to fend for themselves; maybe the StarBlazer force would take them prisoner. Unfortunately for the destroyer captain, Ambelshack Devorion had other plans. All twenty-seven Starhawk fighters picked off the few enemy starfighters that were still in easy range and then converged on the remaining Imperial destroyer, weapons blazing. They dodged the incoming laser fire flawlessly, destroyed most of the torpedoes and evaded the rest, and in moments the last Imperial ship was nothing but a fading ion cloud.

  The battle had lasted less than sixteen minutes.

  Starhawk returned to the Iron Talon, which had not found it necessary to join the battle and risk damage. The surviving enemy starfighter pilots were captured, their ships taken. The StarBlazer convoy, minus one freighter, continued on its way.