Post-Captain De'Vij sat in the command chair of Resisty carrier Survivor and contemplated his career choice.
I should have gotten a posting in one of the sleeper cells, he thought to himself. At least then I'd have something to do.
As one of the first races ever conquered, the tomogrians had been fighting the irken empire for as long as they could remember. They were one of the founding species of the Resisty, and were often looked to for advice. They also thought very quickly and had excellent memories, due to a fast metabolism and an average lifespan of fifty years.
De'Vij clicked his mandibles together. He was only twelve, for crying out loud. He wasn't even old enough to graduate university, and he was supposed to lead this ragtag task force that had no goal other than 'fight irkens'? Yeah, that was a plan, all right.
His XO, a hypurion whose name was unpronounceable but who went by 'Janali' floated over. [Anything new, sir?] he asked in the whistling trill that was the hypurioni language.
"Nothing, zero, zilch and a whole lot of nada," De'Vij replied. "Anything on sensors?"
[There was a comet, but it was too small for target practice.]
Damn. There went their one decent chance for entertainment around here.
"You have the bridge, X," he said. "I'll be in my quarters. Call me if anything interesting shows up."
A short light-jump away, the irken ship Sovereign sat with her patrol group. It wasn't much. Apart from the frigate, there were three light patrol ships with six fighters between them.
"That's confirmed, sir," said the terrified sensor operator. "We've located the Resisty carrier group."
The sensor master only nodded. While the crewman had done a good job and had no reason to be scared, it was against custom to reassure or congratulate subordinates.
He turned and walked back down the CIC to the command platform at the back, where a hologram of the Sovereign took pride of place.
"Shipmaster!" He called. "We've found them. They're loitering in the space lane, waiting to ambush us. Just like he said."
The shipmaster nodded and turned to the irken on his left. "Officer Colmaj," he said, "you have the ship. I'm going up to get the Observer."
There were a lot of rumours about Observer Carapace. Some said he was a natural birth, who was recruited when he killed the death squad sent to exterminate him. Others said he was actually a new AI the Tallest were testing, who would one day replace them all. Others said he was actually a Firespitter in disguise.
But they all agreed on three things. He was tall. He was creepy. And he was a tactical genius.
The shipmaster pressed the call button outside his quarters, located one deck up from the CIC, and held his breath.
"Enter," a voice said. The door slid open.
The room beyond never failed to take the Shipmaster's breath away. It was filled with various holograms of alien art. There were dozens of pieces. Sculptures, statuettes, wall paintings, tapestries, even jewellery.
And sitting in the middle was the tallest irken the shipmaster had ever seen in person.
"Do you like them, shipmaster?" he said. "Each piece here is from one of the races in the Resisty. And each one is an insight."
The shipmaster didn't understand, and so he changed the subject.
"Observer, we have found the Resisty carrier group. They were exactly where you said they'd be. Should we call in the armada?"
"Holo off," the Observer said, and all the art in the room vanished, leaving just a bed, desk and a small lounge area.
"No, shipmaster," he said. "It is only a single carrier group. Two full plnurin war carriers, backed by twelve, maybe thirteen serrican destroyers. Nothing our group can't handle."
The shipmaster gulped. The Observer was actually planning to engage? But this was a recon group, at best.
"A-are you sure, sir?"
"Are you questioning your Observer?"
The shipmaster went pale. Observers were superior to all, acting as direct agents for the Tallest. They could give fleetmasters orders, and those orders would be followed without hesitation or question. They were responsible for covert action, black ops, internal affairs. Their authority was absolute, their very presence classified. And they had instant power of life or death over every irken alive.
"Never, sir," he managed to choke out. "The Observer's will be done."
Observer Carapace sighed slightly. The shipmaster would never learn to think for himself if he kept doing that.
"Very well, shipmaster. Return to your post, have the navigator plot a light-jump, and await my arrival. I will direct this battle personally."
The shipmaster saluted and was on his way out when he noticed that one of the statuettes, a twined pillar of gold and white stone, was still sitting on a pedestal. He paused to look at it for a split second.
"Yes, that one is real," the Observer said. "The one time that I failed to divine any insight from a species' artwork. Now, after decades of study, I think I am finally beginning to understand them."
"I'm sure that will be useful in the future, Observer."
"I doubt it," Carapace said, with just a hint of bitterness in his voice. "I wound up destroying their world. Dismissed, shipmaster."
The irregular waves of blue light drifted by outside the forward viewports as the Sovereign sailed on under T'chilen's slender fingers.
Her antennae curled slightly tighter as the Strikefast drifted into their FTL wake. She tapped her comm button and said some truly unpleasant things to their helmsman, who corrected his position. As the flagship's helmsman, she had seniority.
She snapped off the comm and went back to watching her screens. She liked the quiet of the cockpit. Being in her own room, way out in front of the CIC, all on her own...it appealed to her. Made her glad she'd requested the transfer off the Tyrannic.
One of her displays flashed red, indicating two rels to FTL deceleration. She flicked her intercom.
"Shipmaster, we're two rels out. If you boys are done chest-slapping back there, I'd recommend we go to battle stations."
She flicked off the intercom before he could respond, and sat back to enjoy the quiet. She still had a few minutes before the copilot, TO and spotter came charging in.
Back in the CIC, the shipmaster was gritting his teeth. This helmsman was disruptive, antisocial and disrespectful. Unfortunately, she was also an officer, and she was exceptionally good at the helm. Skill and rank paid for a lot of wounded pride, especially considering how rarely they went together in this Tallest-forsaken navy.
Behind him the lift doors swished open, and he stepped to the side just in time for the Observer to sweep past him and up the short ramp to the TacMap.
The ship's hologram had been reduced in size and moved forward, to clear the command ramp for the TacMap. The TacMap itself displayed the enemy fleet in blue, with a red line indicating the Sovereign's own arrival vector.
"Battle stations!" The shipmaster shouted, and all over the ship a flurry of activity broke out. Proud irken soldiers ran all over the place. They were putting on vac suits, readying small arms lockers, and generally being busy.
And the Observer stood calmly in the middle of it all, like the eye of a storm.
"Emergence in three...two...one..." said the helmsman.
At the 'zero' mark, the small task force appeared on the TacMap, exactly where the projections had put them.
"Drift under fifteen hundred clicks," the Observer said. "Very good, shipmaster. Now, scan for their command channel and hail them on it."
De'Vij was still fumbling with the clasp on his tunic as he ran back onto the bridge. "What's this about an attack?" He shouted over the blaring battle alarm.
[Calm yourself, captain,] Janali said. [It is not as serious as we first thought.]
"This is Observer Carapace of the Irken First Expansion Fleet," said a voice from the speaker on the command chair. "Please identify yourselves and state your intentions."
[He has been repeating this message for five minutes, sir. Then again, there's not much else he can do.]
"How so?" asked De'Vij, still sounding worried. The empire didn't send Observers who couldn't do their jobs. There was a reason they were nicknamed 'the Hands of the Tallest'.
"Well, he doesn't exactly have a battle group, sir," said lieutenant H'Shi'Do. "We detect one frigate, three light patrol ships and six fighters. Hardly a threat. The Survivor alone could deal with them. We have a thousand bibbelaronian drone fighters on board, plus the same again on the Indy."
It was true. The Indefatigable and Survivor were the best carriers in the fleet, and they had so many fighters that it wasn't even funny. Still, an Observer...
"Well, X?" De'Vij said as he sat down in the command chair. "They're hailing us. Shall we open a channel?"
He tapped the comm panel and, over the protests of his first officer, began to speak.
"This is Post-Captain De'Vij of the Resisty Seventh Carrier Group."
A few seconds went by.
"Greetings, Post-Captain," said the Observer. "Please explain to me the purpose of your task force."
"Our purpose is to prevent Irk from expanding, and to attempt the liberation of our people," De'Vij said levelly. "I am afraid I must ask you to withdraw from this sector, as it is under Resisty protection."
He expected shouting. He expected bluster. But the Observer merely...chuckled.
"I'm afraid that runs counter to our own mission," he said. "But if you and your co-conspirators surrender, I can ensure you are tried and sentenced fairly, instead of facing summary execution as rebels and traitors to the empire."
It was all said casually, calmly, and with a hint of amusement.
"With a fleet that size?" the captain retorted. "You couldn't even scratch our paint. What do you possibly have that could stop us?"
The Observer chuckled again. "Me," he said, and cut the communication.
De'Vij gave the order to launch half of the Indefatigable's fighter contingent, and he wondered why the Observer's parting word was so troubling.
"Here they come," the shipmaster said. He was ashamed to admit his voice was a little bit trembly. "Five hundred starfighters. You see them?"
"Of course," said the Observer. "Pull all ships back and launch our fighters. Pull everyone back to sixteen-thousand clicks from the enemy fleet."
On the TacMap the Resisty had formed a defensive diamond around their carriers, with the fighters forming two external hemispheres, one inside the other.
"Why aren't they attacking?" The shipmaster asked.
"Because their drone fighters only have a range of fifteen-thousand clicks from their broadcast source."
And then holding so far away made perfect sense.
"Now," the Observer continued, "let's provoke them a bit. Communications, monitor everything. Fighter two, probe attack, vector one-one-seven by four-one. And order the Surpriser, Strikefast and Relentless into flanking escort position."
"Incoming!" shouted H'Shi'Do. "Single fighter."
"Does he think we're blind?" said the captain. "Outer group, intercept and destroy."
Thirty starfighters swung out of the picket line and shot towards the lone irken fighter. De'Vij watched the screens intently. But the fighters had barely settled into their attack vector when the irken broke off swung around in a tight curve, taking him back towards his own fleet.
[Doesn't he know we have him pinned to the wall?] asked Janali.
"Who knows what goes on in an irken Observer's head?" the captain replied. "All I know is that if this is his best, then they've been vastly over-selling their reputations."
"Skipper!" came H'Shi'Do's voice from tactical. "Same fighter, same vector!"
[Same response, then,] said the XO.
"Watch for any attempts at jamming," De'Vij said. "If the fighters lose our command signal, they go dormant."
"And explode ten minutes later," said the lieutenant. "Let's not forget the exploding."
On the screens the fighter veered off, exactly the same as last time. One of the patrol ships was also breaking away from the cluster around the frigate.
[What is that ship doing?]
"Moving to flank, sir, but it isn't attacking." H'Shi'Do sounded worried.
Back on the screens the fighter was coming in again.
"Same response," said the captain. "He's up to something, X."
[Perhaps he intends to drain them of fuel?]
"Unlikely. He knows that's only a quarter of our full compliment."
Always the same fighter on the same vector. Was he trying to find a weakness in the formation? Surely an Observer could do better than the same attack over and over.
Three more times the fighter sped in, and three more times it was repulsed. As the fourth approach began, the captain decided enough was enough.
"This is getting as boring as the wait," he said. "Order the Indy to close in on the enemy fleet."
[Finally], Janali muttered. He tapped a comm console. [Survivor to-]
"Hold it," interrupted De'Vij. Suddenly the scenario had changed. The fighter was retreating with their own three groups in pursuit, as before. But now the enemy fleet was driving hard towards the opening in the defensive screen.
[And so they make their mistake,] Janali said with a hint of satisfaction, his jellyfish-like body bobbing slightly. [Order the fighters to attack.]
Their CAG nodded and tapped his control board.
But the drones continued chasing the retreating irken fighter.
[Order them to attack!] the XO said, with a flash of the characteristic hypurioni panic when faced with the unexpected.
"They're not responding, X," said the captain.
[They are not being jammed, or they would shut down, but they are flying away from us. How can this be?]
"Never mind the how," said the captain, clicking his mandibles in worry. "Here they come."
"How in blazes did you do that?" Said the shipmaster, once he regained the power of speech.
"Simple, really," said the Observer. "Those are bibbelaronian drone starfighters. They use a cyclical rolling encryption on their signals. But with so many fighters, the number of encryptions has to be limited, usually to three. I simply had comms record the signal they were expecting next, and use it to override the one they got."
The shipmaster's eyes widened in understanding.
"With the fighter always using the same vector, and the same fighters executing the same manoeuvre, the only thing that changed..."
"Was the encryption key. The secret to successful analysis, shipmaster. Whenever possible, reduce matters to a single variable."
The rest of the fighter screen wasn't waiting, and some of the inner screen were already active and preparing to engage.
"I don't think that's going to work for the rest of them, though."
"It does not have to." The Observer tapped the comm. "All vessels, attack pattern Imperator."
De'Vij was very worried now.
Sure, there was no way that a pitiful collection of patrol ships could possibly take down a carrier group. Then again, they just got past three groups of drone fighters without firing a shot, and that was supposed to be impossible too.
Whatever the Observer's next trick was going to be, the Post-Captain was positive he wasn't going to like it. Yet at the same time, he couldn't help but be fascinated by the strange efficiency of his opponent, and a tiny part of him was excited to find out what that trick was going to be.
He didn't have to wait for long. The irken ships and fighters were spreading out now, sacrificing joined shields for extra manoeuvring room. Whole swarms of the fighter grid were spreading out now, breaking their own formation to engage the irken vessels en masse.
The two groups were nearly in range of each other...
And the irken fighters each launched a single missile, while the three larger ships launched two each. They then veered off and began to retreat along the same vector.
In less than a second the fighters relayed the information back to the computers on their carrier, got their orders back, and fired, destroying all twelve projectiles. There was a strange haze that kept moving along the missiles path, though.
[A waste of effort,] said Janali. [That's why missiles are short-range-]
"Pull them back," said the captain as he realised what the haze was. But it was too late.
The twelve hazes hit twelve clusters of fighters, and there was a bright flash from each one. And the fighters went dark on all the control boards, reading as lost.
"Electroshock nets," H'Shi'Do muttered. They were usually on the antipersonnel scale, used to pacify unruly slaves.
De'Vij had to hand it to the Observer. Twelve fighter groups, out of action in one pass...
Out of action, but not out of the fight. He could only watch in horror as the fighters' own inertia carried them directly into the path of the twelve new fighter groups that had been tasked with pursuing the retreating irkens. Both groups disappeared in a series of massive explosions.
And suddenly, that entire side of the defensive screen was gone. There were no more drones to plug the hole with.
"Order the Indy to prep all her remaining fighters," De'Vij said. "Launch them as soon as they can. And pull the flanking screen in to fill the gap!"
[What about our flanks?] asked the XO.
"If we don't fill that hole we won't have any flanks left to guard."
"Here they come, Observer," said the shipmaster.
He briefly wondered if this was what the Surpriser had been moved to the flanks for. But as he looked at the TacMap it was still hanging in space, apparently being kept in reserve.
"I hope you have one grand daddy-robot-arm of an electroshock net up your sleeve, sir," he said.
"If my opponents are going to try this on a regular basis, I will certainly have to look into such a device," the Observer said dryly. "However, we do not need it right this moment. Communications, prepare to release a broad-spectrum jamming frequency."
"Sir, drone fighters are unjammable. They switch frequencies, follow pre-programmed orders-"
"Only if there are any left outside the jamming area, or there are other frequencies to switch to," the Observer said. "The broad-spectrum jamming will take care of one of these problems, and our opponent seems content to take care of the other."
And it was true. Every remaining fighter was now concentrated into a tight ball around the enemy fleet, well within a single ship's comm jamming range.
"What about our own comms, sir?"
"I would trust that irken warriors are more capable than drone fighters when it comes to independent thought," said Carapace. "Let us see if my theory is correct. Begin jamming...now."
For a single horrifying moment the bridge of the Survivor was filled with an impossibly loud screech, like the roar of some ancient legendary monster. Then the poor comms tech hit the cutoff switch and everyone could hear again.
"Sir!" H'Shi'Do shouted. "We are being jammed! All fighters have gone completely dormant!"
[Impossible,] Janali said. [Find an open frequency and get them back.]
"Too late," said the captain, watching the screens as the irken ships flew from fighter group to fighter group, destroying them as they went with the typical ruthless efficiency of irken gunners.
The carrier group's destroyers decided to lend a hand, with several of them launching missile barrages at the irkens. The attacking fighters broke off in response, coming around to circle the carrier group. The missiles followed, locked on to the irkens' heat signatures.
The fighters wove an evasive course through the field of deactivated fighters, but the missiles were made by the vortians, meaning the hardware and software were almost impossible to fool.
The fighters circled around again, took up new vectors back towards the fight.
And then each one dropped something small from their tail that quickly expanded.
De'Vij stiffened as the well-remembered hazy clouds began to form. "More electroshock nets," he said, mainly to himself, as the missiles hit and their electronics went dead.
Only once again, the Observer wasn't merely on the defensive. He'd also turned it into an attack. As the bridge crew watched in impotent fury the missiles slammed into three of the destroyers, blowing off large chunks of their hulls.
Then, without warning, one of the destroyers exploded.
[This is not possible,] said Janali. [Not with a single salvo.]
"Everything the Observers do is impossible," said the captain. "He probably hit a weak spot. He'll be targeting the same spot on the rest of them, watch."
And he was right. Each irken fighter would swoop in close, dodging the few scattered laser blasts the destroyers were able to fire, and launch a single disruptor torpedo. De'Vij noticed that it was the aft fuel line, which connected the reactor core to the massive external engines.
"We have to retreat," he said. "We can't stop him, and we can't outlast him. Helm, prepare a light-jump."
[We're just going to abandon the fleet?] asked the XO.
"What fleet?" The captain said bitterly. "Everything's being destroyed, and we can't do a single thing to help them."
"Jump calculated," said the helmsman.
"Make it."
There were a few seconds of silence.
"Sir?" said the helmsman. "Light-drive not responding. It says...it says we're too close to a planetary body."
With a start, De'Vij remembered the patrol ship that had flanked them.
"What type of ship is that?" he said, pointing to it on the screens.
"It reads as the Surpriser, a Reprisal-class patrol vessel." H'Shi'Do sounded depressed, and the captain felt like joining him.
The Reprisal-class was best known for local pacification and interdiction...because it had a gravity projector that would trip the safeties on all light-drive systems. They'd never jump while that was hanging over their heads.
There were multiple flickers of light across the viewers. The fighters, having gone too long without commands, were self-destructing.
Suddenly, the Indefatigable began exploding from the inside, with the irkens never having touched her.
[Captain,] Janali called.
"I know," replied De'Vij. "The fighters I ordered prepped are exploding." And they were taking the Indy with them. She was already crippled and listing, and her reactor was flaring. She was about to blow.
"Use our hull lights as signals. Use interspecies signals code," ordered the captain. "Signal our surrender."
Three minutes later, it was all over.
I originally wrote this on my iPad, mainly to pass the time while I waited for my laptop to stop burning my fingers whenever I turned it on. The story grew from there.
The cover image is 'The Irken Armada' by Infinidium of DeviantArt, used with permission.
