Here is the third snippet of The Star Engine, coming July 12, 2024. Be sure to preorder from Amazon. https://amzn.to/3V9blRc

Sidewinder felt some regret as his decoy element died, yet they had not died in vain.  Those ships had drawn the majority of the enemy fleet out of position.  His larger force now had an uncontested approach to the planet and he’d have the opportunity to strafe their planetary facilities and then attack the enemy fleet as they came around the planet.

And it would be a victory.  The seventeen ships he’d sent in had been his oldest and slowest, crewed by those of his kind that he found most expendable.  Sidewinder’s main force consisted of over forty vessels, the largest of which would be considered cruisers by the humans he faced, though their armaments were more on par with battleships and their shielding systems would let them sustain far more damage than any purely human ship.

Close with the planet and sweep around, he sent to his ship commanders.  Do not give them time to reload their fighters.

His enemy had fought well and some part of Sidewinder appreciated that.  Rarely did he face a skilled opponent.  Sidewinder would at least give him a quick, clean death.  Besides, he didn’t want to take any casualties from a massive missile strike like that.

You fought well, he thought to himself, sensing the enemy fleet shift to meet this new threat, it is a shame I’ll have to kill you.

***

Admiral Collae watched with calm, dark eyes as the enemy fleet swept in, their swift vessels already in cover behind the planet.  He didn’t pause to wonder how they had arrived, whether they had made use of stealth systems or timed their emergence from Shadow Space to allow their other force to draw him out.

None of that mattered.  What mattered was that they were square on an approach to Force Manticore and the three freighters sat idle, drives on standby, no more a threat than any other cluster of freighters in the system.

“Activate Manticore,” Admiral Collae snapped, gauging the enemy force’s approach.

The three freighters had been massive cargo transports, designed to carry bulk goods between hungry core colony worlds.  Each of those freighters massed more than a battlecruiser, but they had none of the strengthened bulkheads, armor, or power generation.  They were slow, graceless, ugly vessels that Admiral Collae had acquired for one purpose.  His engineers had gutted the ships, ripping out cargo bays and replacing them with cheap, single-use missile launchers.

They were mobile missile attack platforms and as the enemy ships came within point-blank range, his crews triggered all of those missiles in one massive salvo.  He had no way to control that salvo, not even with all the ships in his fleet could have done so… but the facilities on the planet had far more computing power and transmission capability.

The enemy ships hesitated as that huge salvo went in, and that affirmed Admiral Collae’s theories on this foe.  They were alien, they were powerful… but they still felt surprise.

Point defense systems fired and alien ships went into evasive maneuvers, yet they could not, would not, stop all those inbound missiles.  Admiral Collae had trapped them.  No force so small could weather such an avalanche of fire.

***

Sidewinder spared a moment of appreciation for the trap, even as the missiles flashed towards him.  It was a beautiful move, he could admit.  Clever, wonderful opponent, he thought to himself.  A shame that I cannot tell him so in person.

The missiles began to detonate amidst his lead vessels and Sidewinder’s mind went to an option that none of his kind would ever have considered.  It was suicide… worse, it risked everything that his species had long worked against… yet it offered the only chance at saving his ships and returning to defeat his opponents.

Faster than any human could have given the order, much less implemented it, he brought up his force’s shadow space drives and triggered a blind jump.

***

Admiral Collae felt a spurt of surprise as three quarters of the enemy force vanished, a moment later the entirety of his missiles detonated in chain that burned far brighter than Golgotha’s tiny red star.  Balor never use an emergency jump, he thought to himself.  As far as he knew, their drives weren’t even capable of it.  For that matter, even for humans the action was akin to suicide.  There was only a thirty percent chance of any ship emerging at all from a blind jump.  Often enough, the ships that “survived” such events were little more than twisted hulks, their systems overloaded and their hulls shattered by gravitic shear forces.

“Stand down from battle-stations,” Admiral Collae barked.  “Begin recovery operations.”  He would give his people a chance to celebrate their victory… yet it wasn’t one that he felt like celebrating.

He would rather have finished the enemy, destroyed them utterly.  With the blind jump, he didn’t know how many might have survived or where they might have gone.  They could all be dead.  They could be damaged, or they might, with some kind of psionic skill, emerge perfectly fine.  He didn’t know… and not knowing would eat at him.

“Well done,” Admiral Collae nodded at his people.  He pushed his concerns aside.  Later he would contemplate the ramifications.  For now, as always, he must appear to be fully in control.

***

“What the hell was that, do you think?” Alanis asked, staring out the armored windows of the command center for Purgatory Prison Station on the surface of Golgotha’s not-quite planet.

The flash had illuminated the entire surface and the glare had been bright, brighter than the day that the surface never saw, orbiting a red dwarf star that emitted the vast majority of its radiation on the infrared spectrum.

“I don’t know,” Lizmadie said, looking up from the communications console, “but it knocked out all of our remaining communications systems, our sensors… just about everything.  Massive electromagnetic pulse.  Half the base’s surface systems are cooked and…”

The base’s lights flickered and died.

Princess Lizmadie Doko growled, “We just lost power.  The fusion reactor is deep-buried but I think we blew half the fuses in the base itself.  We’re going to be down for days, maybe weeks…”

“Ma’am, that is, Princesses…” Lieutenant Ambrosio said from the doorway, “You need to see this.”

They followed him outside.  On the way, Alanis fumbled with a flashlight, but it seemed the same pulse that had knocked out the base systems had fried it too.  Of course…

Outside, on the same platform that Major Scaparetti had threatened her from, she followed Lieutenant Ambrosio’s gaze upwards… and gasped.

The entire sky was alive with witch-fire.  It must have been a massive electromagnetic burst to make the magnetosphere of the planet glow so powerfully.  While some part of her appreciated the beauty, especially as the diaphanous colors illuminated the world, softening the harsh planes, most of her was thinking over the implications.

“This would have to be a world-wide effect,” Lizmadie said next to her, echoing her thoughts.

“Communications and defenses could be out everywhere… not just here.” Alanis nodded.  She clapped her friend on the shoulder, beginning to smile, “Get everyone together.  This is our chance!”

They’d freed themselves from capture, they’d managed to get weapons and equipment, to take over an entire prison facility, their captors none the wiser.  They had a shuttle and they could have slipped into orbit, taken a ship, and escape the system.  For anyone else, that might have been enough.

That wasn’t enough for Alanis Giovanni.  She was going to capture the entire Star Engine… and this was her chance.

***