Bedlam in the Beyond by K.J. Coble

Author:K.J. Coble
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Space Fleet, Space Opera, Military Science Fiction, Galactic Empires, Space Colonization
Publisher: K.J. Coble
Published: 2025-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

A SHUDDER WENT THROUGH the deck and Jaxan tensed. It rippled through the shuttle bay, flinched through the hundreds of Drop Troopers waiting in tense, durasteel-sheathed stillness. Almost no one spoke. All knew that hell stalked outside Tenacity’s hull, and only her shields and guns kept it away.

The Droppers huddled together in their units, anonymous in their battle armor and waiting with weapons clutched close. Some appeared to pray, as befitted whatever race or creed they followed. Many—most—stared glumly into the nothingness, alone with their thoughts and fear. Jaxan knew that look. A few, the more masochistic, bunched around holographic displays, fed from the bridge and constantly updated.

Jaxan counted herself amongst this last category, standing by one of the Marauders and watching the progress of the fight through a globular projected against its side. She couldn’t dwell in her mind, obsess over her helplessness. She had to have at least the illusion of agency, even if it was just waiting for the terrible cyan flash of a particle beam.

The view from the Tactical display, piped down from the bridge, was one of grinding destruction. The broad arrowhead of the Republic Fleet punched through space, cutting into the Golgothans as they rushed them and rebounded. The Golgos didn’t appear to be forming a single defensive line, seemed to content themselves with furious charges.

One of these played out as Jaxan watched. A squadron of cruisers streaked along the flank of the fleet, lashing out with their predictive waves of missiles, then veering away. As the Republic ships replied with massed energy blasts, a formation of battleships streaked in behind the confusion and released a salvo at closer range. These they followed in, right into the maelstrom of the Republic counterfire.

Jaxan clenched her teeth, could feel every rivulet of sweat, loosening and itching its way down her skin to dampen the lining inside her armored suit. A jump into the fight would be bearable, at least. But sitting here, watching anarchy unfold outside the metal sheath of Tenacity, watching to see if it would tear through that shell into them—it was its own kind of hell.

A huge blister of yellowy fire expanded at the edge of the Republic left flank as missiles got through the overlapping point defenses to overwhelm a cruiser’s shields. There were no secondary explosions, no trails of debris as the ship bled out. Annihilation consumed the vessel with the cataclysmic finality of a Reflex Core breach.

The Golgothan battleships peeled away with their victory, blasting through the still-expanding cloud of white-hot gasses. But Republic fire dogged them and the trailing ship took several direct hits, then caught a spray of plasma torpedoes fired off at an awkward and long range, but striking before its shields could regenerate. A chain of hell-flowers ripped it to pieces as it attempted to change course.

Good God, Jaxan thought, working a mouth gone utterly dry. That was probably a thousand people, between the two, burned to ashes in seconds!

“It’s like we’re stuck in a giant, damned coffin,” Estes muttered, standing nearby and watching her globular.

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