Dragonslayers: Part One

Major Sir Juksong Lopez, pilot of the seraphim SpiritOfSigfried and squadron leader of Seed of Truth’s Gamma flight, felt the rush that came whenever he connected to his SERAPH core. It was like a hatch in the back of his head opened up and his mind expanded to fill the enormous quantum cogitation arrays and transdimensional processors allowing him to become so much more than a mere human being. Major Lopez knew that in archaic Earth’s mythology the seraphim were angels of fire who brought divine retribution on the enemies of all that is good and holy. As Juksong felt himself become one with his armored battle mecha, as the point defense cannons and antigravity engines began to feel as much a part of him as his fists and feet, he understood that the arcane technology that powered mankind’s greatest weapons was aptly named.

Just as he felt his own consciousness sinking down, Juksong felt another consciousness rising up to envelope him. The veteran seraphim pilot embraced the connection with practiced ease. The feral instincts of the SERAPH tightened snuggly around the pilot’s sense of self like his safety harness. The sensation of feeling and thinking on behalf of an extradimensional intellect made every pilot’s skin crawl at first. In time, one grows accustomed to the feeling of being a small part of a physical god.

“Alright Gamma Flight, we have a mission profile. Long range scrydar picked up a Kroxaa wargator and two to five escorts. This is a standard Chevauchée. We have drilled this a thousand times. You all know your roles. load and lock. Let's get ready to rock.” The flight commander messaged in trinary code to his squadron. Juksong felt his human hands moving to manipulate manual controls that served as backups. The wing commander’s will chose the custom loadout for the mission and advised his squad mates on suggestions for how to prepare themselves to execute their portion of the attack plan. It was largely formalities. Gamma Flight was as competitive as any of the other seraphim squadrons that had been assembled for this expedition. No one wanted to be seen as the weakest link in the vessel’s defenses. As a result, Juksong Lopez and his crew had drilled for exactly this sort of attack run. They had run the scenario half a thousand times. Each pilot knew their job. Major Lopez felt his human arms tingle as the technicians finished locking his vorpal lance and aegis projector into his arm mounts. Juksong felt the comfortable weight of the macron cannons locking into place on his shoulder hardpoint mounts. As the weapons systems began to draw power from the infinite reservoir of energy generated by the Synaptic Energizing Reactive Ansibilanic Phase Hybridizer Juksong felt them become a part of him.

Each of the five members of the ship’s Gamma Flight had their weapons panoply customized for their role in this ****. As wing leader Juksong would take point. It was his responsibility to tank the most damage as well as dishing it out.

“Gamma two ready.” Rollins said as his mecha was finished being loaded with the heavy shield breaker, or what was more colloquially called the **** scythe. His shoulder mounts carrying the massive bulk missile packs with enough antimatter warheads to destroy a small continent.

“Gamma three ready.” Chu said. Her mech loaded for maximum rate of fire with the twin star blasters on her arm mounts. She and Gamma four had the thankless task of carrying breacher pods in place of shoulder mounted weapons.

“Gamma four ready.” Corkin said. Carrying the matching loadout of Chu.

“Gamma five. All set to scrap.” Quaid said. Her mech was unique in having four arm mounts which she loaded with her customized nova-matter chain claws as well as a macron rifle and aegis projector. Quaid’s mech did not support the standard shoulder hard points, but more than made up for it with the extra point defense batteries.

“This is Gamma leader reporting all systems green.” Juksong Lopez said over the channel. “Tac-com Gamma squad is good to drop. Waiting your word.”

“Gamma flight this is Seed of Truth actual, the word is given. Happy hunting.” BGT1T5 said over the comlink. With that, the launch bay doors opened and one by one the five members of The Seed of Truth’s Gamma Flight were flung from the ship into the empty darkness of the void. The seraphim got into formation, activated their stealth systems, and jumped to hyperspace.

***

Lt.-Pack-Sister Szthrahc of the Fresh-Snow-Zero-Tracks;clan-23g was on the bridge of her clan hearthship when they received the transmission from the humans. “Knavar ship Fresh-Snow-Zero-Tracks;clan-23g, this is Seed of Truth tactical, our long range reconnaissance has detected a Kroxaa wargator on an intercept course for our location using a lower band of hyperspace in an attempt to avoid detection. We would appreciate any information you might have on this vessel and her escorts. Sending you the data now.” BGT1T5 transmitted along with a data packet containing a detailed profile of their drive wake, mass shadow, and even bio-sign readings of the interior. Szthrahc did not need to run the cross analysis. The Knavar girl would never forget that nightmare vessel that had unleashed such devastation upon their pack. The ship that took her mother from her.

It had only been a few weeks since their pack splinter got ambushed while refilling their water tanks. The Kroxaa wargator and its five frigates had emerged from the depths of hyperspace without warning. Caught with their drives cold and their hatches open, many hearthships were fat and easy targets. Those ships that were standing by on guard were completely undergunned for the situation. The Knavar photon weapons lacked the punch to break through the Kroxaa shields while their Alliance Navy surplus torpedoes lacked the speed and maneuvering capabilities to evade the Kroxaa’s crude but effective point defense system which put up a wall of bullets between their ship and any incoming fire. Szthrahc had watched from the bridge as frigate after frigate threw themselves into the teeth of that monster in the hopes of getting close enough to shove a few antimatter warheads down the gator’s throat. A few ships got lucky and scored some serious body blows to the warship, but only at the cost of themselves.

“Tell my daughter that the woman who gave her life, lived and died with honor.” Szthrahc’s mother had transmitted on a wide frequency before the frigate commander ordered all power to engines, forward shields, and MAC drivers. Szthrahc wondered whether or not it was a consolation that the escape pods from her mother’s ship did get clear before the frigate’s drive core went nova. There was a chance that one of the other pack clans picked them up, but if anyone had rescued them from a cold slow **** in the void, it was probably the Kroxaa. Szthrahc could not imagine how life as a captive aboard one of those disgusting monster’s ships was preferable to ****.

“Seed of Truth tactical this is…” Szthrahc found the words getting stuck in her throat. She wanted to scream in terror. She wanted to yell at the bridge crew and these stupid humans that they all needed to run. No matter how fancy their ship was, the humans could not be carrying anything that could take on a ship as heavily armed and armored as that Kroxaa ship coming to finish what it started. But that was not Szthrahc’s call to make. The lieutenant pack sister could only do her job and pray to The First Ancestor that they would survive another day. “Seed of Truth this is Fresh-Snow-Zero-Tracks;clan-23g. We have a positive confirmation on that wargator. Sending you a data packet now. I hope this helps.”

***

Every shaman aboard the Kroxaa wargator and its escorts felt it. Their psychic senses were dazzled in a blaze of metaphysical light that stunned the mystics and rocked their footing wherever they stood. Crewmen and slaves alike were shocked and confused as their spiritual leaders all at once became gripped with a terrible headache.

The shamans knew what the gaze of an enemy god felt like. The attack ship’s spiritualists did not let the suddenness of the metaphysical attack phase them. Each of the shamans had devoted their lives to the worship of Kruxmaw. They were well versed in the powers of their god and how to use them to defend their people against the weaker metaphysical allies of lesser species. The shamans rolled their eyes into the backs of their heads and focused their collective power into repelling this attack from the spirit world only to discover with horror that the enemy gods were not in the spirit world, at least not completely. One by one the Kroxaa shamans came to realize what was happening. Someone or something had found a way to coax five eldritch beings older than the universe itself into a physical form and send these vengeful spirits to attack Kroxmaw’s children. Some of them even managed to come to this conclusion before the warning klaxons started blaring and things started exploding.

***

Major Sir Juksong Lopez and his seraphim flight had formed up and meshed their coms. The five SERAPH’s shared their thoughts as their enhanced consciousnesses digested the data packet sent to them from the Knavar. Their post-human minds analyzed the extensive scans that the dog xenos had taken as the beast of a ship tore through their flotilla.

“Gotta give them credit. This is some solid telemetry. They got some wonderful data on their shield harmonics, point defense architecture, and weapons and navigation array locations.” Rollins said. “This is going to seriously help me when calculating firing solutions and programming evasion patterns.”

“You can show the xeno bitches your gratitude later.” Chu said. “Let’s drop these cans and get back to the ship.”

“I hear that Gamma Three.” Corkin said.

“Enough chit chat SERAPHs, enemy is in the yellow zone.” said Juksong. The wargator and its escorts were close enough to be in a clear view on their passive scrydar, which meant it would not be long before their stealth systems would be ineffective “Gamma leader to all hands. Looks like they have not spotted us and our firing solutions are not going to get any clearer. Are we good and ready?” Juksong asked.

“Good and ready, Major.” Rollins said.

“Fired up and ready.” Chu said.

“Locked, cocked, and ready to rock.” Corkin said.

“I am prepared.” Quaid said.

“Alright then. Drop wake bafflers and go active. Target live! Dive! Dive! Dive!” Major Lopez ordered.

***

The bridge crew of the wargator became aware of five very small objects moving towards them very, very fast. Moments later the Kroxaa’s automatic warning system blared to life as the ship was actively targeted. Counter-torpedoes were launched at what the computers initially mistook for five torpedoes launched from a yet undetected ship somewhere within the vicinity as the Kroxaa battle chief ordered all ships to take evasive action. The wargator and her frigates accelerated into the higher frequencies of hyperspace assuming that no munition could keep up with a proper ship burning its way into the higher frequencies of pseudo-velocity. “Warchief, our counter torpedoes have been destroyed!” A tactical officer reported. “Those things must have been carrying submunitions. They are increasing in pseudo velocity. Hostiles closing at sixty kilolights! What are your orders?”

“Munitions that burn that hot cannot have much fuel, take evasive actions. Alter warp amplitude to by five million BPS every zero point three seconds. That ought to baffle their targeting systems.” the Kroxaa warchief said. As the five targets continued to accelerate and close on their position, the Kroxaa warchief ordered his three frigates to close with the targets and destroy them.

***

“The frigates are breaking off to take us on. Quaid, You are up.” Said Lopez. The four armed mecha broke formation and accelerated ahead of the rest of the flight. The seraphim pilot altered her course ever so slightly to bring her into contact with the trio of frigates that were scrambling to target lock the mecha moving at superluminal speeds. Quaid’s macron cannon punched through the frigates’ shields like they were tissue paper and detonated the barrage of micro nuclear payloads across their hulls. Quaid’s claws extended out and tore a breach through the Kroxaa attack ship’s hull. From there it was easy for Quaid to dig through the ship. The seraphim tore through the vessel’s decks like they were made of paper. Once Quaid had reached a vessels’ core, the mecha pilot would disable or destroy their reactors’. Killing the ships. The first ship had not gone perfectly and Quaid had taken a nova to the shields. Upon examining the data from the first frigate, Quaid at managed to figure out how she had messed up to make sure that she left the other two Kroxaa frigates floating dead in space for later recovery.

***

The Kroxaa watched helplessly as four of the munitions continued to close on their vessel as one of their frigates went nova just before the other two went dark. “Flak pattern alpha!” shouted the warchief. The Kroxaa vessel filled the void with bullets creating a wall of shrapnel with the seraphim’s shield projectors repelled as easily as if they were rain drops.

***

“Rollins. Give them a knock and say hello.” Juksong ordered as Gamma Flight closed in on their target.

“With pleasure Major.” The heavy weapons specialist said. The enormous arc of glowing green energy extended from the shield breaker’s projector. Rollins swung the energy weapon and tore a hole through the protective field guarding the predator of a starship. “Bringing the rain!” Rollins said as he unloaded his sixty four missiles carrying antimatter warheads ahead of Chu, Corkin, and The Major. Once the missiles were away annihilating their targets, the trio with the close in weapons dropped through the shield and began to obliterate anything on the vessel's hull that looked remotely threatening or functional. Chu and Corkin spewed out countless tiny stars that detonated with the power of the archaic atomic weapons their ancestors had once used when man would make war with man on the cradle world. The star blasters fired thousands of nukes a second. In contrast to his wing mates saturating the enemy with radioactive fire, Lopez carefully selected his targets before unleashing the power of the vorpal lance on its lowest setting. Juksong never tired of watching how the quantum fluctuation transduction projector twisted his targets to pieces in a distortion field that tore matter apart at the subatomic level.

“Touchdown.” Corkin said as his seraphim’s feet made contact with the Kroxaa wargator’s hull just moments before Chu. “Making the drop.” The pair got to work locking the breaching cans to the wargator’s hull. Lopez flew overwatch and used the countless tiny point defense cannons festooned across the hull of his seraphim to provide fire support against the **** void marines and attack drones the Kroxaa sent to try and scrape the mecha off of their hull. Lopez was actually impressed by a few of the superheavy tanks the lizards had gotten from somewhere. Those battle wagons had needed saturation fire from fusion macrons to neutralize.

After a few minutes of heavy lifting, the four breaching cans, each large enough to fit a few thousand vyraxis and mekani infiltrators, were locked to the hull of the ship, established a seal, and had begun burning their way into the hull. “We have solid breach.” Chu reported. “All four cans are green.”

“The boarding parties can take it from here.” Juksong said. “Mission accomplished. Good work team. Back to base.”

Five SERAPH powered mecha formed up and jumped to hyperspace at a pseudo-velocity of eighty thousand times lightspeed, leaving screams of terror in their wake.