The Tae-Run Wars

By Joshua Coene

“Captain, the Spear of Earth is arriving at our assigned position.”

“Thank you, Officer. Hold position.” Shun smiled slightly. He felt his
blood race, though he was careful not to let his excitement show. The crew
was eager enough for this fight without his adding to it. Shun was the
youngest person assigned to command this post in recent memory, but the
Navy was desperate for trained personnel.
Shun felt a gentle pressure as the braking thrusters at the front of the
spacecraft activated, slowing the ship to a stop precisely at the proper spot,
much to the obvious delight of the woman down at the navigator’s position.
“Easy, Officer Hann.” The captain smiled wryly. “As much as we are all duly
impressed with your piloting abilities, I don’t think we need to hold a
celebration every time you arrive,” he checked his own readout, “within
three meters of the exact location of the objective.
“Yes, Captain. Apologies.” The woman nodded slightly in a quick form
of a bow. Shun looked her over carefully. Despite having been on the front
lines for most of the last year, Navigation Officer Rae Hann still seemed
almost painfully raw at times. Her deftness in maneuvering the massive
cruiser, though, could not be ignored.
Shun smiled slightly to himself. They all still felt painfully raw at times,
Shun himself having graduated from the academy a little less than three
years ago, and made captain of the Spear when it was commissioned a year
ago, straight out of the drydocks. Now her organic curves were as familiar to
him as his own body. He looked fondly over the bridge of the ship, running a
hand over the smooth arms of his chair. The bridge was all flowing lines,
with a gentle slope down towards the viewscreen at the front of the room,
almost like an auditorium. All the chairs were facing forward, with their
respective controls and consoles arrayed before them.
 A soft tone followed by a series of taps drew Shun’s gaze to the
Communications Station. Eyes intent on his console screen, Ensign
Temmer’s fingers flew over his controls. “Captain Shun, I have an incoming
transmission from fleet command to all ships.”
Shun nodded, tugging at the neck of his uniform as he stood. “On
screen.”
The crisp image of the Fleet Admiral, in his formal uniform, appeared
on the viewscreen. Behind the Admiral, the flagship’s command center was
a hive of activity. Despite knowing that the admiral had all the fleet’s
captains on his screen, Shun felt that the old man’s austere gaze was on him
and him alone. “Captains of the Planetary Defense Navy, this may be my
final address to many of you. We have fought these alien invaders, these
Tae-Run bastards, long and hard throughout our solar system. We made
them bleed for every piece of our territory they stole from us. The time has
come for our last stand! We will fight them in the skies over our beloved
homeworld! We shall resist to the end! No more will these bastard Tae-Run
take from us what is ours! We. Will. Not. Let. Them. Pass.
“Captains and crews of the Defensive Corps, I ask that you give
everything you have. I cannot lie; the aliens will have superior numbers as
well as technology perverted to their vile ends. I do not know if we can win
this fight. But I will be damned to a hell worse than my darkest imaginings if
I let them take my home without giving my last gasp of breath in defiance!”
The admiral bared his teeth in a savage grin; Shun’s expression quickly
matched the admiral’s, and was mirrored on bridges of all the arrayed
starships. “While there is yet breath in my body, I will fight! Fight on, you
brave bastards, and when you get to hell save me a seat!”
Cheers went up as crew and officers throughout the fleet let out a roar
of approval. They’d all been fighting a losing war against these aliens for far
too long, and now it was finally time to make their last stand. There was a
sense of desperate celebration among the defenders, a certain catharsis to
knowing that, live or die, this was going to be the end. Alcohol had been
distributed the night before, and the fleet was ready for one last party.
Shun looked out over his bridge crew with no small sense of pride.
They were mostly new, recruited into the Navy at what, under any other
circumstances, would have been considered far too young. This was a war
for survival, though, and certain sacrifices needed to be made. Even the
children.
Then again, he wasn’t precisely the image of the veteran soldier
himself. Hell, some of them were older even than Shun himself, Security
Officer Braun, for instance. Shun, though, had been a cadet in the Academy,
about to get his commission, when this whole mess had started. It had been
three years before when the Tae-Run had first arrived. Three years that
seemed like a lifetime now…

“I hope that you will understand, Captain, why it is impossible to grant

you and your people the right to colonize our planet.” The official was
genuinely apologetic, but the Tae-Run representative didn’t seem mollified.
Shun squirmed slightly, tugging furtively at the collar of his formal uniform.
He, and several others of the best and brightest Academy cadets, had been
included in the negotiations as witnesses. These aliens, the Tae-Run, had
shown up at the edge of the solar system eight days previously. The initial
panic calmed as the Tae-Run showed no aggressive tendencies. Their
leaders explained that they were on a peaceful mission; they were a religious
group that had undertaken this journey to a new world where they would be
free to practice their beliefs. They emphasized that they were a group of
exiles and explorers, not a conquering army. Military observers had been
sent to examine their ships while diplomats and government dignitaries met
with the Tae-Run Council. Reports highlighted both with their level of
technological sophistication as well as the depth of their religious belief.
Exiles and explorers though they may be, the Tae-Run captain did not
seem inclined to accept the official’s words. Shun’s brow creased into a
frown. Born and bred a naval officer, the cadet could sense a change in the
wind. There was a faint whirr as the alien’s mechanical eye refocused, skin
pulling around it strangely as the creature grimaced. Its reply was broken
Common-tongue, with strange, flattened inflections, but it was
comprehensible - an impressive feat after eight days of contact. “We will not
be content with this. We have come a long way to find an inhabitable planet.
There is no place for us on the world we left.”
The official rubbed his forehead, a grimace of his own entering into his
expression. “Apologies, Captain. However, our government is not willing to
cede such a large territory, cherished by so many of our citizens, to an alien
power.” He shook his head slightly. “The amount of land you have
requested would necessitate the relocation of hundreds of thousands of our
citizens. I’m afraid it would be impossible, especially in the seven days that
you specify.”
The captain snorted impressively, despite by-and-large entirely not
having a nose. Tae-Run all had those strange, flat faces, with only a slight
protrusion and a pair of holes for nostrils. That was, of course, where they
hadn’t entirely replaced their faces with metal. There were rumors that
some of their implants allowed them to have a sort of hive mind, letting
them all hear each others’ thoughts as they arose. They did have an eerie
aversion to use of the singular pronoun…Shun suppressed a shudder and
had to force himself not to stare at chromed foreheads as the Tae-Run
captain spoke once more. “Your apologies are not enough. We demand
more than your protestestations of impossibilities.”
“Perhaps a compromise could be reached?” The official looked
desperate. Shun couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. Being the
bearer of bad news was never an enviable position. “Perhaps a smaller area,
a longer time table for relocation, or reparations for those forced out? Or
perhaps concessions for some to remain, especially in remote areas…?”
“No.” A strange fervor burned in the Tae-Run’s eye. “Our gods guided
us to this planet. Our gods promised us this land. Your need for
compromises and concessions is irrelevant.” Its voice went even flatter, eye
burning, the mechanical replacement set in his other eye socket whirring in
an attempt to keep up with its mate in something it had apparently not been
designed to duplicate. “This land has been promised. You will yield it to us.”
The captain’s grin turned into a rictus, a creaking of stressed metal as cables
tightened in its arms. “You can cooperate, or our current peace will be
exchanged for a new one. That may not be a peace you like so well.”

Three days later, as negotiations spiraled inexorably downwards, the

Tae-Run war began. Outlying patrols of scout ships were attacked and
ruthlessly destroyed in coordinated attacks by the Tae-Run. Most of the
Exploratory Fleet was destroyed and fledgling space colonies were butchered
in the opening weeks. The main advantage possessed by the Tae-Run was
their faster-than-light starship drive. An attack could happen at one end of
the solar system one day, and the next they could have skipped to another
section entirely. The beleaguered defenders could hardly keep up, despite
having superior numbers.
The Navy’s numerical advantage did not last long. By the time that
Shun received his commission, concerted Tae-Run attacks had destroyed
virtually all shipyards and fuel depots controlled by the Navy before the
defense could be mobilized. Only a few hard-won victories punctuated the
string of defeats. While their FTL drive gave the Tae-Run an enormous
strategic advantage when it came to overall mobility, its energy
requirements, combined with the demands of weapon systems, left Tae-Run
ships slow and cumbersome compared to the Planetary Navy vessels.
Unfortunately, this advantage was rarely enough to guarantee a
decisive victory. Navy forces were spread far too thin to be effective against
a concentrated Tae-Run attack. A quicker, more maneuverable ship was all
well and good, but when only one was available to every five enemy ships,
that advantage rapidly disappeared. Also, the Tae-Run would occasionally
ram Navy ships, intentionally binding to the other vessel to send over
boarding parties. Captured ships would be converted to alien uses,
bolstering the attacking fleet. Tae-Run control over the solar system
tightened daily, until an impenetrable blockade was formed.
In light of the desperate situation, a meeting of government and
military representatives formed a coalition. Military strategists proposed one
last stand, one final all-out fight with everything they had in an attempt to
halt the conquering Tae-Run. Every ship that could be equipped was sent
up, every man available was used. Regardless of the outcome, the
confrontation would be spectacular.

“Captain, I’m picking up multiple FTL energy readings at the edge of

the defense perimeter. Tae-Run ships are closing in on our position.” Shun
snapped out of his reverie, blinking as he returned to the present.
Commander Taë, his second-in-command, looked up at him, a wry
expression on her face. She enjoyed catching him off-guard, it seemed.
“Closing rapidly, at that. They’ll be on us in a few minutes.”
“Acknowledged.” Shun nodded to himself, surveying his bridge crew
as they made the final preparations. They were dedicated, hard-working and
would not fail at this critical hour. The captain allowed himself a small smile.
No matter what the future held, he was proud to have served with them.
“Hann, move to intercept.”
“Aye, Sir.” The pilot smiled to herself, her confident hands gliding over
the controls, and again Shun felt the gentle pressure of inertia as they
moved forward once more.
“Ensign, message to the Admiral. Our compliments, and we are
advancing as per his orders.”
Temmer nodded, his dexterous, long-fingered hands working rapidly
over his console. “Yes, Captain. It’s done.”
“Good.” Shun turned aside, looking down to the woman at the tactical
console. “Commander Taë, ready all weapons. Check that all laser batteries
are operating at full power.”
 “Aye, Sir.” Taë’s hands flickered over her console, like a musician at
their instrument, and a matter of moments later, she nodded. “Done. All
weapons are at maximum power output.”
“Very good.” Shun turned to the other side. “Lieutenant Braun, sound
general quarters.”
“Yes sir!” The bulky security officer turned aside, speaking calmly into
the ships comm.
Shun turned back to look at the viewscreen at the front of the bridge
as it flickered, beginning to show enhanced views of Tae-Run ships
disengaging their FTL drives and dropping back out of wherever it was that
the laws of physics didn’t apply. Shin’s eyes narrowed as he watched the
ships fall into formation. You could say many things about the Tae-Run, but
despite not truly being a military organization, they did have a good grasp of
basic tactics.
The holographic tactical display showed the rest of the fleet slowly
advancing alongside the Spear, shifting formation to the offensive. They
were still too far distant for most of the focused-beam weapons to maintain
cohesion, but a few of the heavier ships on either side were firing spreads of
torpedoes. For lack of any other targets in range, the beam weapons on
both sides were easily picking off the torpedoes as they approached. One
missile managed to slip through and exploded in the midst of the Tae-Run
formation, knocking several ships aside. Then a Tae-Run torpedo detonated
among the Navy ships, crippling one and sending it tumbling through space.
The battle rose to a fever pitch as the Defense Navy fleet reached the
Tae-Run. It was too close on both sides for missiles to remain effective; both
friend and foe would be caught in the blast and any shrapnel resulting from
such an explosion would be deadly at such short ranges. Lasers stabbed
through the darkness of space and sliced into armor plating. The tightly
focused beams drew lines through hulls, cutting through like blowtorches.
Any pieces of other ships that were cut off would be either be large enough
to avoid or small enough to not do significant damage.
 Shun growled beneath his breath, inertial dampeners fighting to
compensate for the massive pulls of g-forces. He felt the ship shudder
beneath multiple impacts, wincing as the Spear rocked from side to side. He
heard the ship’s weapons firing, the subtle vibrations translating through his
seat. Readouts flickered on various officers’ screens, but they were too far
away for Shun to read. All was chaos on the viewscreen, the strobing light
and darkness nearly too painful to look at.
And then they were clear, through the line of Tae-Run ships and out
the other side into the quiet blackness of space. The Spear was still
vibrating all around them and the engines had picked up a nasty-sounding
whine, though evidently they had come through in (mostly) one piece.
“Bridge crew, status!”
“Laser Batteries two, eight, and nine aren’t responding, Captain!” Taë
grimaced, looking over the weapon readouts as she continued, “One, three,
four, and seven have been damaged and are operating at about sixty
percent effectiveness.”
“Engines have sustained several direct hits, but seem to be holding
well enough,” Hann reported from her station. “We’ve got a slow leak in one
of the fuel tanks, so thank whatever god you believe in that the laser fire
didn’t score a direct hit there. If one shot had, you’d be talking with that god
in person now.”
“Enough commentary, Hann!” Shun cursed softly, though it truly could
have been far worse. “Temmer, what’s the status of the rest of the fleet?”
“Most of them seem to be about in the same shape that we are,
Captain.” His hands flickered rapidly over the controls. “We lost about
twenty-five percent of all Navy vessels in that opening exchange.” Temmer
frowned at his communications console. “About fifteen percent of the Tae-
Run vessels were crippled or destroyed.”
Shun cursed under his breath. “Turn us around, Hann. We’re making
another pass at them.” He looked over his shoulder to Jayne. “Get any
available crew onto repairs. See if you can get that leak patched up, then
move to any other repairs that need to be done.”
“Aye, Captain!” came both replies. The security officer strode quickly
from the bridge, speaking quickly into his personal communicator.
Meanwhile, Hann was wrenching the ship around into a tight turn and
punching the engines up to full burn.
From this distance it was easy to see the carnage left behind where
the fleets collided. Several ships had run into each other, leaving both ships
tumbling away through space, crumpled together so hard that it was
impossible to individual ships in the mangled wreckage. Others had been
intentionally rammed by Tae-Run ships attempting to send across boarders.
Still more ships spiraled away, momentum carrying them far from the battle
when systems were too badly damaged to reverse the acceleration.
However, the amount of Tae-Run ships still functional was daunting as
compared with the number of operational naval vessels.
The Spear sped like its namesake back toward the Tae-Run lines, Shun
searching for targets. He tapped a few buttons on the arm of his chair,
consulting the small viewscreen there, and then looked to Hann. “Pilot, take
us on an attack run to that ship, half speed.” On the main viewscreen, a
highlight popped up around a Tae-Run ship that was only half-turned back
toward them, and the Spear altered course, slowing down as it approached.
Broadside to the enemy ship, Taë tightened her hands on the controls
and the Spear struck. The front laser batteries opened up, impacting the
wallowing ship amid sporadic return fire from the Tae-Run vessel’s lateral
weapons. Precision shots crippled the Tae-Run’s engines, further blasts
piercing hull armor and igniting fuel cells. The ship tore itself apart from
within, flashes of explosions and brief flames visible as the rear half of the
alien ship disintegrated, the mostly-intact front half propelled forward by the
explosion. Purely by luck, the projectile created by the remains of the
destroyed ship clipped another Tae-Run vessel as it careened away, spinning
the mostly-intact vessel off course and causing serious damage. An
impromptu cheer went up in the Spear, both in the bridge itself and over the
comms.
The cheering proved premature as the ship was rocked by a massive
impact, sending any standing bridge crew tumbling to the floor and nearly
unseating Shun and other seated crew members as well. Recovering
quickly, Shun straightened in his seat. “Status report! What hit us?”
Taë was already pulling herself back in front of her console. “The
damned Tae-Run rammed us! All starboard batteries are offline! They’ve
got us good, and they’re sending across boarders, level eight, starboard
side!”
“Oh, those sons of fornicating…” Shun trailed off into incoherent
curses. “Hann, break free!”
“Engines aren’t responding, Captain! They’re still online, at least, but
we aren’t going to get anywhere with this massive alien freak on us.”
“Damn them all,” Shun growled under his breath, then picked up his
communicator as he strode toward the door. “Taë, you have the bridge. No
alien techno-freak is going to take this ship if I have anything to stay about
it.” As he left, he heard Taë confidently issuing orders. She was a
competent leader, if a bit inexperienced, and he trusted her to lead the ship
in his absence. He’d likely get a reprimand for this later, but the Spear of
Earth was his ship and he would be damned if he sat back in the bridge while
his crewmen fought for her.
He activated his communicator as he strode through the corridors
toward where the Tae-Run ship had penetrated. “Jayne. The Tae-Run
bastards have rammed us, and are sending across boarders. They’ve hit
roughly midship on the starboard side, level eight. Divert any available crew
from repairs to defense, get any weapons you deem necessary from the
lockers, and I’ll be with you there shortly.”
Shun could swear he heard the security officer’s grin over the comm.
“Aye, sir. I’ll try to save a few for you when you get here. So hurry down, or
I’ll get impatient and leave you less.”
 Shun couldn’t help a grin of his own as he hurried to the lift. Jayne
Braun always seemed to be spoiling for a fight. It made him valuable as a
security officer, though Shun might have to stop him from charging all the
way onto the Tae-Run ship.
The lift hissed down to level eight, then disgorged its cargo. Shun
hurried along the corridors of the ship to where sensors had indicated the
breach, stopping along the way to access a weapons cache, pulling out both
a pistol and a rifle and attaching the pistol’s holster to his belt. As he
approached, the sounds of weapons fire guided him to the site of the battle.
He rounded one last corner and he was there. Armed Tae-Run
boarders came through the tunnel that they’d punched through the hull of
the Spear. Crewmen took shelter behind rubble, finding bends and twists in
the corridor to protect them from Tae-Run weapons fire while their own
weapons blazed away. The Tae-Run attacked as a single mass, their assault
uncanny in its coordination. They filed into the Spear’s hallways, pushing
their way relentlessly inwards, with no regard for the bodies they climbed
over.
Shun spotted Braun through the haze of smoldering debris. “Jayne!
Fall back to the next bend in the hallway! We’ll take as many of these
bastards as we can from there!”
“Aye, Captain! Glad to see you here, by the way!” Jayne snapped off
a shot, blasting through a Tae-Run’s head and splattering those following
with bits of metal and alien ichors. “I wasn’t sure how many more of these
I’d be able to leave for you.” The security officer’s red armor was singed in
several places, a chip flying off from a glancing hit as the man fell back to
Shun’s position.
Shun considered the aliens filing in with his eyes narrowed. They were
relentless in their approach, attacking one after another. The captain
shouldered his rifle, taking aim at the aliens boarding his ship and opening
fire. “Fucking bastards, get the HELL off MY ship!”
 The battle for the ship dragged on for nearly thirty minutes. By that
time, ammunition stocks were running severely low, and fully a third of the
surviving crewmen were casualties of one form or another. The Tae-Run had
fought their way deep into the ship, only stopped by a last-ditch defense
raised in a convergence of corridors. Lieutenant Braun had been wounded
twice, the second time seriously enough to necessitate his removal to the
rear. Shun had also been wounded in the arm, though he’d stayed on the
line through to the finish. The rifle he’d been using was ruined, the barrel
shot clean off by a Tae-Run weapons blast, and his pistol’s barrel was nearly
reduced to slag from the heat of its discharge. Victory had been won,
though at a high price.
With the assault pushed back, crewmen set charges and blasted the
entangled boarding tunnel off to release the Spear from its Tae-Run
counterpart. Free once more, Taë turned the ship back into the battle at
large as the Tae-Run vessel lost the fight against gravity and tumbled into
the ocean below. Shun returned to the bridge as soon as a corpsman saw to
his arm, though by that time the battle was largely over. Nearly two thirds of
the Planetary Defense Fleet was left in ruin, tumbling through space, and no
vessel had escaped unscathed, but the Tae-Run were completely wiped out.
There had been no suggestion of surrender; with conviction in their strange
gods the Tae-Run had fought to the death in all cases.
Lieutenant Braun, despite his wounds, insisted on commanding the
cleanup crews throughout the Spear of Earth. From his bed in the medical
bay, he arranged a comm node to connect with all crewmen involved with
repairs, medical treatment for the wounded overflowing the medbay, taking
care of fallen crew members, and disposing of dead Tae-Run.
For a while, even Shun was under the Security Officer’s command. His
wound seen to, the captain joined the crews on level eight. The tunnel had
been blown; when they had a chance the remains would be removed entirely
and the hull repaired, but for now crew members in vacuum suits had to
work on the outside to place a panel over the hole so that the deck could be
repressurized. Once that had been completed, the bodies which remained
after the explosive decompression could be taken care of: the dead crew
members laid out individually in state, the Tae-Run dead (any that were
found wounded were executed on the spot) piled to one side.
Shun grimaced as he helped another crew member haul a dead Tae-
Run to one side. With his wounded arm, he needed help to shift the bodies.
Perhaps it was due to the cybernetics implanted throughout their bodies, but
the Tae-Run dead seemed unnaturally heavy. This one had lost its armored
helmet at some point of the fight, and Shun was repulsed (and not for the
first time) by how the aliens looked even without any visible implants. Flat
faces, with only a slight bulge and two holes for the nose. Their mouths just
seemed too narrow as well, their lips almost comically large. Shun snorted
softly, pulling back the alien’s lips, revealing flat teeth, with a pair of small,
unpronounced canines on both upper and lower jaw. The skin, pale to begin
with, was paler now in death, an unhealthy, maggot white. Shun
remembered from an examination that the Tae-Run’s nakedness didn’t
extend only to their face; for the most part, excepting a small patch on each
one’s head, their skin was entirely devoid of fur, unlike Shin’s own thick,
luxurious coat.
The crewman helping Shin haul the heavy Tae-Run to the pile of alien
corpses snorted in derision at the mounded heaps of the enemy dead.
“Idiots for starting this war in the first place. Look where they are now.”
Shun nodded slightly in agreement, regarding the dead as well. By this
point, it was difficult to distinguish what bits of metal in their bodies were
shrapnel and what were their implants. “Guess their techno-gods must have
deserted them.”
Shun again nodded his agreement, sitting down and bracing his back
against the wall of the corridor a bit away from the stench of alien dead. Just
looking at the crewman made Shun cringe slightly; his tail had been shot off,
and looking at the foot-long stump made Shun’s own tail curl in sympathy.
“Techno-gods or no, they’re done trying to take our planet. Our home is safe
again.” A grin spread across his muzzle, baring his own pointed, perfectly
white teeth. “In any case, I blame the gods of irony more than desertion by
tech-gods. I hear that they used to call themselves ‘humans’ before they
began their journey out among the stars.” The snort of derision through his
feline muzzle echoed the crewman’s own. “Nothing humane about what
they were doing.” Shun pulled his lunch out of the bag at his side and
offered some to his companion. Through an observation port, the sun could
be seen rising over the curvature of planet Leois below. It was going to be a
beautiful day.