Alpha One - Chris Burton [119]
Hoskins closed the link, pleased with his speech as he felt he had delivered the facts clearly and concisely without creating a sense of panic. He felt sure that many out there were in a situation completely beyond their comprehension and were probably scared out of their wits. He turned his attention back towards the tracker and Winterburn.
“Commander, we have a fix on the AUSWAS ship again. She is travelling away from us at one-quarter stellar velocity. There is a problem though, sir. We just picked up our first sighting of the Kryl. There is a large mass approaching from the grid, sector four. I can’t be sure at this stage whether it is one big ship or thousands of little ones.” The young Lieutenant look scared as he completed his report.
“Thank you Lieutenant. Good work. Number One, are there any other sizeable craft in this makeshift fleet?”
“Yes,” replied his first officer, “There is a small freighter and several large shuttles in the group. What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s discuss in my ready room.”
“Becket, you have the con. How long before the Kryl fleet reaches us?”
“About ninety minutes at current velocity, sir.”
“Thanks. Keep me updated.”
The commander and his first officer entered the ready room, and Hoskins set about explaining his dilemma.
“We have to get Winterburn and bring him back with us, and yet somehow we need to be here to shepherd these ships back through the wormhole. I want you to seize command of the freighter and take a third of the crew with you, including jump ships and infantry. I want you to seek out and capture Winterburn and bring him back to us. We will then all depart together. I need this done with a minimum of force and within twenty-four hours.”
* * * *
Commander Jacques knew he had entered new territory, not just because he was tens of thousands of light years from home. It was his first command, and he and his crew were in a makeshift Alpha ship, they had a new enemy, they were in a new galaxy, and were about to pull off an assault on an enemy craft. They would extract Winterburn, destroy the vessel, and then return to the blue wormhole, joining the vast majority of the his stranded compatriots before re-entering the wormhole and praying they would exit the void back in their own galaxy. There were so many ifs and buts, yet as he reflected further, he realized his task was probably the lesser of two evils. Within the next hour the Halo 7 would engage the Kryl. They had no comprehension of whether the Alpha Battle Cruiser would have any impact on the Kryl fleet. Jacques wandered whether he would ever see his colleagues on the Halo 7 again.
His crew commandeered a small cargo freighter; the existing crew was quite happy to be evicted to the relative comfort of the Halo 7. The newly conscripted vessel set off immediately in pursuit. The ship’s NAVCOM locked onto the tracker pulse being emitted by the AUSWAS ship. They had already started to close, and Jacques and his crew felt the pangs of anxiety which always manifest moments before battle.
* * * *
Hoskins knew he asked a lot of his first officer. Certainly Jacques was more than competent, but the freighter was probably not, and it was already becoming clearer the new enemy might be technically superior to the Halo 7 and its flotilla. The Kryl fleet was within teutonic missile range, but he wanted to conserve his more powerful weapons. He was prepared to use any of his weapons to achieve his aim. Failure was not an option.
The Kryl fleet were upon them and yet neither fleet fired an opening salvo. There were about two hundred of them. The ships were small, less than ten meters in length and were shaped like a teardrop, bulbous at the rear graduating down to a sharp tip at the front, but with no other visible features. Each ship was translucent, but easily detectable as each ship glowed