The Hall of the Betrayed

The Hall of the Betrayed

  By K. H. Blackmoore

  Copyright 2012 K. H. Blackmoore

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  Lestari's palms were sweating so badly he could feel the sweat trickling down the controls in his hands. He breathed in deeply, the chill air blowing gently in his face being sucked into his lungs as he tried to calm his pounding heart. He closed his eyes and breathed again, focusing on the feeling of his heartbeat, trying to slow its rapid thumping. He remembered being taught this meditation technique by his father during one summer’s visit to a lake house on a planet far away.

  Feeling somewhat better Lestari opened his eyes again. The holographic image being projected on the inside of the cold steel cockpit had not changed. Just the peaceful image of a million specks of light, the cold unblinking shine of faraway stars.

  It was a quiet, peaceful scene. Completely at odds with the state of nervousness he felt. He turned his head and the sensors in his helmet detected his thoughts, displaying the information he was looking for on the hologram that surrounded him. Green dots flashed into being around him, tiny scrolling words underneath each telling him what each dot represented and how far away it was from his position.

  Damn. They had mobilized the entire planetary fleet. Whatever was happening really must not be a drill.

  Lestari thought back to only an hour before. He had been asleep in his bunk when his roommate had burst in and woken him. The other young man had been excited, babbling, and nearly incoherent. It was all Lestari could do to wrap his sleep muddled mind around the fact that they were being put on alert. He needed to grab his flight uniform and get to their assembly area as quickly as possible.

  Months of training had kicked in. Habit over rode his sleepiness and Lestari had found himself seated in the meeting room with the other nineteen young men who made up his fighter squadron. All of whom were talking at the top of their lungs. Something had happened, everyone knew it. But what that something was no one really knew. Only that their wing had been mobilized and it was supposedly not a drill.

  Their flight leader, the twenty-first and final member of their wing, knew a little more when he arrived a few minutes later. A warning beacon in the next system over had sent a partial transmission before going silent. There was no war going on, no enemy expected. But whatever had been in that transmission was enough for the planetary defense force to mobilize. Their wing was being designated Yellow Two. They would be on the far edge of the defensive line.

  Lestari had not had time to be nervous before now. Each second had flown by as his feet had carried him down corridor after corridor to the launch bay where his fighter was standing ready. He had to dodge station crew and members of the other wing which shared the high orbit defense station with his wing. The bay crew had already prepped his fighter and he managed to be the first member of his wing to launch, although the others were not far behind him.

  They formed up a few hundred meters outside the station, green lines appearing on his display, directing him to his place in the squadron. Once they were all in place another set of lines appeared, directing them to the far side of the planet to their place in the defensive line.

  Even though their assigned position was on the far side of the planet and they had to dodge most of the satellites, small ships and other traffic, Lestari's wing was the third to arrive. His wing mates had kept the squadron communication system buzzing the entire flight. They were extremely excited. A quarter of them seemed to think the entire exercise would prove to be a false alarm. The rest were sure something enormous was about to happen. Not a single voice on the entire communication system seemed to share the sinking feeling Lestari had.

  They arrived at the designated coordinates and slowed to a stop. It was then that Lestari really began to get nervous. It was all he could do to keep himself from shaking until he calmed himself down using the meditation techniques passed down to him through his family.

  To keep himself distracted Lestari spun his seat in the cockpit. The controls rotated with him and issued a quietly rhythmic clicking noise as he turned. Behind him the rest of the battle line was beginning to form up. The display blinked again, showing him not only where every fighter was, but were they would also be when the lined was formed.

  The plan was for a line to form near the axis of the planet, just inside the orbit of its second moon. It would not be a line exactly, more of a gentle curve along the gravity well. Space battles were always a matter of guess work and positioning. The ideal defense was far enough from the planet to avoid becoming entangled in the space born infrastructure that surrounded a densely populated world like this one. But there was also the danger of forming a line too far out, in which case the enemy would drop back into normal space on the inside of your battle line and wreak havoc. Most attacking fleets preferred a more cautious approach, dropping back to normal space far beyond the gravity well of the planet. It gave the defenders advanced warning, but it allowed the attacker’s time to check their shields, launch fighters, vent explosive engine waste and a hundred other tasks which could only be completed safely in normal space before going into combat.

  The lessons on planetary defense ran through Lestari's mind as he studied their position. Behind the line of fighters a second line of the light frigates was beginning to form. These were jump capable ships, usually manned by less than fifty men but fitted with far heavier armaments than a fighter carried. Those heavy weapons would be needed to punch through the armor of large, jump capable attack vessels. A group of fighters could take out a frigate if they swarmed it, but not if they were also contending with enemy fighters as well.

  Directly behind and a little above Lestari's wing was one of the thirteen cruisers assigned to this planet. He recognized it as the Magni. Named after the ancient Norse god of brute strength, it was an appropriate name for the heavy cruiser. Far larger than a frigate, a cruiser carried a crew of four hundred. From its position in the line it could fire over Lestari's wing with its powerful missiles and lasers without the fear of friendly fire. Its loading bays were large enough that damaged fighters could be pulled inside at a pinch. A set of armor thick enough to withstand a barrage from a capital class ship completed the ugly war machine.

  Lestari rotated his seat some more to scan the rest of the line. Nearly two hours had passed since he had first been roused from bed and some of the fighter wings still had not taken position yet. He had to smile. This was why his squadron trained incessantly. And why they were one of the best.

  The battle line was going to be huge. Ten squadrons housed in five orbital defense stations made for over two hundred fighters alone. Combined with the thirteen cruisers, it made this planet one of the most heavily defended planets in the middle ring. But the military had thrown everything they had into space. Lestari saw that some of the heavily armored frigates were painted with civilian emblems, deep space exploration ships in the line. A number popped onto the lower corner of his display. There were nearly three hundred ships and fighters taking their places around the planet.

  No wonder everyone else was so confident. It would be madness to attack a planet this heavily defended. Lestari finished his cycle, facing back out now into the depths of space. Surely this was going to be a short engagement. A large fleet of pirates would probably drop into normal space, realize they had bitten off more than they could chew, and jump out again without a shot being fired.

  But somehow he couldn’t shake the fee
ling that something was massively wrong. Warning beacons malfunctioned or gave false alarms all the time. The planetary council would not have mobilized the entire planet, including the civilian ships, for a possibly faulty beacon. Perhaps all the fighters and a few of the frigates, but not every single fighting asset the planet had.

  The time dragged on. Conversations crackled across the com lines only, to fall silent. One hour turned into two. Then three. Hunger began to gnaw at Lestari’s stomach, reminding him that he had not yet eaten breakfast.

  Lestari was facing the battle line again, drawing up the history of each of the larger ships to pass the time, when his screen began flashing red. At the same time a conversation about what the squad was going to do that night fell silent. Spinning quickly, he turned just in time to see the blinding flash of a ship dropping into normal space.

  Far out of the planet’s gravity well, the ship appeared to be roughly the size of a frigate. As Lestari focused on the ship, the screen in front of him magnified it. Then the screen magnified again; and again; and again. His jaw dropped as a note flashed below