"341". Part 2

Five weeks passed since the publication of the first part, and I broke my own deadline (I wanted to meet a week earlier). You can justify as much as you like, but it is better to try to meet the next time faster.

In the second part, a parallel storyline begins on behalf of Una's younger brother, Kyle. The part turned out to be completely independent and therefore it is not particularly important whether you read the previous one or not. At the end of the post is a small announcement of the next part. Enjoy reading!



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Chapter 2. Kyle

09.05.21

"Do not do anything stupid.", - Kyle sent the last phrase and interrupted the communication session. He just wanted to hear her voice and pass the time, but the news seriously disturbed him. More and more rumors hovered over the Syndicate, and many of them came from trusted sources.

He was present at the next military meeting, the second in a day. Captains of the fleet, headed by an elderly admiral, gathered at a huge table. Their task was to destroy the fleet of the rebels and, if possible, take the "Apostle", who was at the head, alive.

Kayla was not comfortable among the regular military personnel, and he again regretted that the uniform was not put to the executioners. In any case, the meeting did not solve anything, before the start he managed to talk to the Boss, and she promised to send “special” assistance to them.

All the attention of the audience was directed at the young liaison officer standing at the map. He reported the latest intelligence data he had just received.

- The rebel fleet has 23 battleships, 42 support cruisers and about 200 fighters. They all stand in the raid of the planet Kalle. Intelligence was never able to determine on which of the ships the Apostle was stationed.

“What about reinforcements?” - asked one of the captains.

- We were sent to the 3rd fleet from the inner ring, but they will arrive only after 6 hours. - reported the liaison officer. Besides…

Kyle interrupted the speech of the speaker, depicting as serious a tone as possible.
- We can not wait so much time, "Apostle" can leave the system at any moment.

It would have seemed strange to an outside observer that the civilian interrupts the officer, but he, as a executioner in the performance, had every right to intercept the leadership of the operation at any moment.

- Too dangerous! I can not give an order to attack. - the elderly man in an admiral jacket has objected. It was strange to observe a balding old man in such a high position. Any citizen of the Empire could prolong his youth at minimal cost, and he could not understand why the admiral did not want to take advantage of the achievements of Imperial medicine.

In response to Admiral Kyle laid out his trump card:
“And if I say that Chimera will join us any minute?” - The hall exploded at the mere mention of her. Most of those present were delighted, but there were also those who were afraid that she would take all the laurels for herself. Only the admiral remained calm.

"Chimera" manifested itself only a year ago, but during this time managed to participate in almost all the hottest battles. And earned a reputation as the strongest executioner.

A radio operator flew into the room.
“Sir, a ship has appeared at the base.” - he reported.

- Whose ship? And how the hell did you miss him ?!

- Imperial Dreadnought class "Eon", "Chimera", sir! - and, as if making excuses, continued. - He appeared out of nowhere, we could not detect his exit from the warp.

“They are requesting permission to board,” the radio officer was saved by the liaison officer.

“Allow me to prepare the second docking bay,” the admiral ordered.

A deafening electric crash swept through the room, and there was a smell of ozone in the air. A girl materialized before the signaller. Her red hair was gathered in a long tail, in other matters, they have darkened since their last meeting, and their glitter has disappeared from their eyes. Only the whiteness of the skin remained unchanged. She was wearing only a simple white T-shirt, spacious black pants, and boots made of artificial leather. Now she would have gone for the junior technician from the engineering deck, and only the black identification bracelet on her left hand showed her high position.

Despite all the changes, Kyle recognized her and tried to call:
- Lily ?!

But she only looked at him and immediately became gloomy.

“They told me you needed help.” Her voice was full of ice. “Well, go home now, since you cannot cope with the Apostle.”

And then she cast a scornful glance at Kyle and disappeared before anyone could react.

The first admiral came to his senses:
- Who will tell me what it was?

“We were made clear that we were free,” Kyle replied. He himself was heading for the exit.

* * *

Kyle sat at the main console of the Boreas and watched the Chimera sink into the warp. Its smooth lines gradually dissolved in the blue haze of the warp field.

Ships of the class "Eon" were a mixture of a dreadnought with a carrier ship, and as a result a defective dreadnought or a defective carrier was obtained. They gained a terrible reputation in the fleet, and for all the time only four such ships were built, not counting the Chimera itself. The very same "Chimera" in the past bore the name "Star" and was the flagship of the Imperial fleet. It differed slightly modified design and increased size.

On the one hand, nothing prevented him from immediately going to Eridu and helping Una, but he could not get rid of her gaze.

He undocked from the base of the fleet and, flying away to a safe distance, went into the warp after the Chimera. The ship shuddered, and the blackness of space gave way to the multicolored haze of the warp. The trail left by a huge dreadnought was clearly visible, but towards the end the trail abruptly broke off, and he had to continue on his own to the Calle system.

"Boreas" emerged from the warp - and no one. The fleet of the rebels, as it should be, lay in the orbit of the planet Kalle, but not a single trace of the Chimera. He was left alone against the whole fleet. A dozen cruisers rushed to intercept him. Kyle turned the ship around and tried to get away from them, but the cruisers had a significant speed advantage, and they gradually caught up with it.

The familiar cold voice broke the silence:
- Follow the plan.

- What is the plan?

“To what you suggested to the admiral in the morning,” she clarified the order.

"How did she know about the plan?", But now it was not important, and he flew to the moon. According to the plan, the Imperial fleet was to be located there, and his task was to lure the enemies to them. She must have disappeared behind the moon, this was possible if you turned off almost all the equipment and sensors on the ship. It is more difficult to hide the way out of the warp, but she has already shown that she is capable of this, having aroused everyone at the base with her sudden appearance.

The enemy ships, like vultures, were all approaching, and the closest of them had already entered the zone of destruction of the guns. A cruiser has a speed advantage, but a battleship has protection and armament.

Kyle fired, aiming at the sharp nose of the nearest ship, but his 100mm particle accelerator left only a small scratch on the enemy's hull, most of the energy was absorbed by the shield.

“Aim at the dark ledge above the nose,” the same cold voice commented on his shot.

Kyle enlarged the image of the cruiser, and saw a small ledge in the armor on which the array of sensors was located. He shot him from the second gun, and the result exceeded all expectations! Something bloated in the ship, and then it was torn to pieces.

“Defects in the food chain,” Lily still calmly clarified what had happened.

Kyle could only envy her calm, followed by the pursuit of nine enemy vultures. He was distracted by the system message: "Data loading is complete!". The ships of the pursuers were colored with colored spots indicating vulnerable spots.

- Are their ships in such a terrible state?

“Your ship is no better,” she snapped, making it clear that she did not want to continue the conversation.

"Borey" was not intended to escape, only his two tools could work on the rear hemisphere. Kyle turned the ship right side to the enemy to give a volley of onboard guns. The enemy counterattacked, but the shells of their rail cannons stopped, faced with the kinetic barrier "Boreya". The shield indicator has nearly halved. Kyle transferred most of the energy from the engines to the shields and fired a volley of six onboard particle accelerators, distributing them to the vulnerable points of the three enemies. Two ships turned into fireballs, but the third was able to dodge at the last moment and avoided serious damage.

A particle accelerator is a hybrid of a laser and a railgun. When fired, it emits a stream of heavy charged particles accelerated to 1/10 of the speed of light. The particles are quite small and the kinetic barrier simply ignored most of them. With all the advantages of a particle accelerator, there is one significant drawback: particles quickly lose energy and at large distances become ineffective.

Without waiting for reloading, Kyle abruptly turned and framed the port side. A new volley illuminated the battlefield, this time all three targets were destroyed. The remaining cruisers came too close and already circled around him, like real vultures. The Boreas' turrets did not keep up with their movements, and those in turn generously sprinkled steel blanks on it. The shield melted before my eyes. The enemies were too fast and he had only to wait for the right moment when they would fly into sight.

When only 10% was left of the shield, one of the vultures became completely insolent and, forgetting caution, flew under the gun barrel, for which he paid the board torn to shreds, but now it was not even worth counting on repeating the error.

“Use a jerk,” her voice sounded again, but this time there were notes of anxiety in it.

“You know I can't,” he admitted.

But she prepared herself for this:
“I figured everything out, direct the ship to the center of the moon and turn on the warp drive for exactly 340 milliseconds.”

Jerk called the warp-transition for short distances, but he could not master it.
Kyle trusted her and turned on the warp drive. His ship plunged into the warp for a moment. When he emerged, he was separated from his pursuers 500 kilometers, this was just enough for a U-turn and one single salvo. "Borey" is not designed to retreat, its full potential opens when it is turned towards the enemy.

The three remaining opponents lined up and approached him. At their head was a ship with two parallel potholes on the nose, remaining after the first salvo. Kyle overloaded the guns. He aimed the four front guns at the leader, and the side guns at the riders on either side. The guns of the battleship spewed out bright white rays, lining up in a perfectly symmetrical figure with knots at points where enemies had flown a second ago. The cruisers had no chance to survive such an attack.

Kyle checked the sensors. No one else was chasing him, it seemed that the rebels were absolutely not disturbed by the death of their comrades, and they were still spinning revolutions around the planet. Then he noticed how a huge dreadnought slowly crawled out from behind the moon. He took it for the Chimera, but the on-board computer identified him as a Banshee and painted its marker with red. Dreadnought's main guns turned in his direction and accumulated a charge for a shot.

- You can relax, then I'll figure it out myself.

Everything around was blurred, and then his ship was suddenly surrounded by metal walls, only in front of the stars could be seen through a round hole. Landing grabs clasped the ship. He was inside the hangar, the "Chimera" came out of the warp directly at him.
It was too much, the slightest deviation, and they both would have died.

- What are you doing, you want to kill us?

- Might and praise, in the end! - it seemed to him that she was standing somewhere nearby and yelling at him. - And besides, I had a margin of half a meter.

"Ice and flame" - this phrase is best suited to describe her character. Kyle was afraid to admit, but he liked this trait in her, and he even sometimes deliberately provoked her.

“Sorry, sometimes I forget what you can do,” he apologized.

- You could have kept silent, you know how I feel about apologies.

“Sorry,” he repeated automatically.

- You're incorrigible.

A little skirmish reminded him of the times before that ill-fated night, of the times when they were together.

He asked a question that worried him in recent times:
- Why did you avoid me?

“You made it clear to me that you didn’t want to continue to communicate,” it seemed to him that she was sobbing. - I have a fight here in full swing, let me finish, and then you can offend me as much as you like.

She opened full access to her neuro-interface, and he saw the world through her eyes. He was stunned by the huge flow of information, she seemed to be watching everything down to the body temperature. Accustomed, he was able to discern the silhouette of the Chimera. He remembered her dark bronze body well. To her left was the Banshee, in comparison with the Chimera she no longer seemed huge, but after looking better, he realized that the Banshee had already lost the battle. Its starboard side was melted down from numerous hits, and on the site of the guns of the main caliber gaped through holes. The power of "Chimera" scared him, and at the same time pleased that she was on his side.

And to the starboard side numerous points of the enemy were already flying, the very ones that still remained on the planet. Apparently they had hoped until the last moment that the Banshee would deal with him.

Lily, instead of shooting at them, sent all the energy to the shield. The blue sphere vibrated around them from overload and it seemed that it was about to fall. The fleet fired a volley, but the shield indicator did not even budge. She waited a little longer and dropped the shield. All the accumulated energy of the wave flew at the enemies. Those who survived the wave, she finished off with its numerous tools. Its black rays literally burned through everything. The fight was over before it started.

“I told you I could do it,” after the victory, she was in high spirits.

- It is surprising how you were able to deal with the Banshee so quickly.

- Hima herself neutralized her. We can watch the replay, I still have a record. Waiting for you on the bridge.

- Well, only I have two questions: who is Hima and where is the bridge here?

“Exactly, you have never been here before,” she said vexedly. - As you get out, turn right, walk past the white ship and after it will be on the left an elevator, climb up to the top. And I call Hima the mind of the ship.

Stepping into the hangar through the lock door on board the ship, Kyle found himself in a spacious hangar capable of sheltering at least three battleships. He drew attention to the very white ship, about which she mentioned. Half as much as the Boreas, it was more like a rocket warhead. Round in cross section, the sharp nose gradually expanded to the middle, and then narrowed. The location of the gun turrets, he took the ship to a large sabotage cruiser. Nine guns were distributed in three belts. The first is in the front, the second in the widest part and the third in the end. But the size of the guns is too large, in his estimation it was 200 mm. It turned out that this was no longer a cruiser, but a small battleship, but what surprised him most was another.

- Since when do “WI” build ships?

- This is our firstborn.

- Similarly, Una once told me that you work for WI.

- working? I created the Warp Initiative.

Silence broke the sound of the elevator. The door opened and she stepped out of the stall.

- Well, hello Kyle. Long time no see.