She shook her head bitterly at the thought of comparing herself to a chicken, silently scolding, That is something Kongming would have done.
“Move out!” she barked, and the team quickly boarded the lift platform. It then began to rise and she knew that whatever trouble the team of Marines had just given them, more of it would be waiting at the surface.
Much more.
Chapter XXIX: A Flower in Bloom
“The Omega’s Light has regenerated its shields,” Ryan reported with no small amount of bewilderment. “She’s firing on the Gate.”
The Gamer Gate’s icon flashed yellow and then briefly went red before finally settling on an angry orange which indicated severe system failures had occurred aboard the MSP Heavy Cruiser.
“Open a channel to the Gamer Gate,” McKnight instructed. “Tell Captain Archibald he needs to withdraw immediately; we’ll take over from here.”
The Freedom’s Bastard shuddered beneath her feet, prompting Shields to report, “Forward shields are at 54%; I’m reading fluctuations in the forward grid but I think I can shunt some of the draw over to the port relays.”
“Do it,” McKnight ordered. Her ship’s forward shields had been restored just a few minutes earlier. No sooner had the shields been brought back online than the helm control system aboard the bulk freighter slotted the Bastard into the center-most position in the shared shield grid’s forward facing. She knew that diverting power from the port array to an already shaky forward array ran the risk of blowing both systems out, but she didn’t have a choice.
The original formation of sixteen warships had been reduced to eight, with four of her allies’ vessels being destroyed outright while the other two were ejected en route to the planet’s orbit—which they had very nearly reached.
“Focus all fire on the secondary targets,” McKnight growled. “Forget about the Omega’s Light; target its supporting Corvettes.”
“I am unable to raise Captain Archibald, Captian,” Mr. Guo reported solemnly. “The Omega’s Light appears to have erected a jamming field—“
“Cut through it, Mr. Guo,” McKnight snapped. “I need to coordinate with the Gamer Gate if we’re going to have a chance to—“
The ship lurched violently, and for a moment Lieutenant Commander McKnight feared that the orbital mass drivers had not, in fact, been destroyed by one another as the sensor data seemed to suggest.
“A gap has formed in the forward shields,” the Shields operator reported frantically. “It’s the bulk freighter, ma’am,” he added with alarm, “I’m reading cascade failures all across the freighter’s power grid; it looks like she might have lost one of her fusion reactors and now the rest are overloading one by one.”
Knowing that freighter had already done more good for their attack than she would have previously assumed possible, McKnight raised her voice, “Broadcast a Priority One message to the rest of the fleet: we are to break formation immediately. Lieutenant Spalding, send the kill code to the freighter’s central helm control; Helm, prepare to take back the reins; Shields, deactivate the BT shield unit.”
A chorus of ‘ayes’ acknowledged her orders, and Mr. Guo quickly replied, “Message sent, ma’am; all ships reply in the affirmative.”
“They saw the same thing we did,” she muttered as she flipped through the tactical data to get a closer look at the bulk freighter’s power profile. At first it seemed as though the report had been accurate, but some of the readings were inconsistent with a cascade failure. Several of the reactors did in fact seem to be in various states of overload, but others were operating within normal parameters…and there was something strange about their output levels.
The Bastard lurched beneath them and Helmsman Marcos reported, “We’re back on local helm control, ma’am.”
“Use point to point beams and instruct the fleet to form up on us, Mr. Guo,” McKnight said grimly. “Let’s put some distance between us and the freighter.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Guo said just before the ship was rocked by a series of impacts.
“Four turbo-laser strikes from the Light,” Shields reported, “forward shields are at 18% with critical spotting!”
“Helm, present our starboard side to the Light,” McKnight barked.
“Done, ma’am,” Marcos said.
“Captain, the freighter…it’s breaking up!” Sensors cried with alarm.
McKnight’s eyes instinctively snapped over to the main viewer’s tactical readout, which showed the freighter maintaining its course and speed without an update which would indicate it had been rendered inoperable.
“Confirm that,” McKnight said as another wave of impacts shook the ship, causing the main view screen to flicker randomly for a few seconds before re-stabilizing.
“I…I just don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Sensor said helplessly. “Patching it to the secondary viewer.”
McKnight looked over at a nearby screen and her brow lifted in surprise before she finally understood what the freighter’s true purpose had been. The freighter did appear to be breaking up, but it was a controlled disassembly—and as it disassembled, with plates ejecting from seemingly every major surface of the ship, a plague of arrowhead-shaped craft began to pour from the openings.
“They’re fighters, ma’am,” Ryan said with astonishment. “Their physical dimensions suggest they’re aerospace hybrids of some kind…like the old colonial defense types I saw in museums as a kid.”
“How many are there?” McKnight pressed, feeling a surge of hope as fighter after fighter streamed out of the freighter’s hull. She barely even noticed another pair of impacts which rocked the ship as the fighters’ technical data began to stream across the screen. If there were a hundred or more of those fighters, the tide could very well turn back in their favor!
“I’ve got fifty…one hundred…two hundred,” Ryan rattled off with increasing exuberance, “three hundred distinct signatures out there with still more streaming out of the freighter!”
“I am reading a new ship transponder signal, Captain,” Mr. Guo reported with a note of interest in his usually calm voice, “it identifies as Valeria’s Fist—it’s a heavily-armored troop transport of an archaic design.”
McKnight recalled the passenger manifest from the freighter which had been originally assigned to her Sector 24 Task Force having contained a prominent figure whose name was Valeria. She had been a Hold Mistress of some kind on Tracto whose domain had apparently included a fortress which had been demolished. The Tracto-an warriors which she had agreed to lend to this particular operation were all natives of Valeria’s lands, so apparently the Hold Mistress had wasted little time in assuming titular authority over the ship which would carry her warriors into battle.
“The Fist is heading for the planet, ma’am,” Ryan reported. “Over a hundred fighters have assumed an improbably tight formation around it; I doubt enemy fire would hit the lander without striking a fighter first.”
“It seems Lynch thought of everything,” McKnight scowled, her previous elation dimming somewhat at the realization that he had kept the lander’s location—that location being within the bulk freighter, along with a plague of fighter craft—secret from her throughout the pre-mission briefings. But in truth, she didn’t begrudge him that; she had essentially agreed that her ship and crew would become hired guns for his operation, not the other way around.
“The fighters are engaging the near Corvette,” Ryan said with relish, prompting McKnight to refocus on the tactical readout just as fifty fighter craft began a coordinated attack run on the Corvette. The fighters started out in a far-too-perfect line formation which speared toward the enemy warship without firing a single weapon. “They’re entering collision range and they still haven’t fired their weapons,” Ryan said with a hint of dismay as the Corvette’s PD arsenal unleashed on the relatively frail craft, destroying no fewer than twenty of them as the remaining fighters surged onward unthinkingly.
“They’re committin
g suicide,” Marcos said with unvarnished horror.
“No pilot would sacrifice himself like that,” Lieutenant Spalding said with finality. “Those ships are automated.”
“Of course they are,” McKnight growled, suspecting she knew precisely how those craft were being controlled. Lynch had almost certainly appropriated the Sundered remote control technology after Yide’s family agreed to trade their gunships for the Mode. “We gave him the hardware he needed to do it.”
Before further discussion could take place, the fighters made their final attack run and spread out in a fan-shaped bloom. They were arranged in pairs, with one craft directly in front of the other, and without fanfare or aplomb they rammed the Corvette—or at least, they appeared to ram it.
“Impressive,” McKnight grudged when she saw that only half of the fighters had actually been destroyed by impacting on the warship’s shields. The other half—those craft which had followed the now-destroyed leading member of each pair—were now buzzing about beneath the Corvette’s shields and strafing with what appeared to be magnetized bombs.
The hull of the Corvette rippled with explosions from bow to stern as bomb after bomb exploded against its hull, tearing huge rents in the previously pristine armor plating of the Rim Fleet warship. In the span of a few short seconds, the warship’s primary hull bucked as its fusion reactor exploded, tearing the ship in two and sending a cloud of metallic debris out in all directions as the ship spewed its innards into the void of space.
“The fighters are moving in on the second Corvette and the Omega’s Light,” Ryan reported with unconcealed glee.
“Will they have enough fuel to intercept either?” McKnight asked as she tried and failed to recall the fuel capacity from the limited specifications available to her on the Honey Badger class aerospace fighter. The Bastard’s twin turbo-lasers lashed out at the second Corvette only a few seconds after the first had been destroyed, scoring a pair of hits against its already weakened forward shields. A pair of cutters in formation with McKnight’s ship added their own medium lasers to the barrage, causing severe spotting on the Rim Fleet warship’s shields.
“I think the fighters will intercept the second Corvette,” Mr. Guo reported smoothly as the enemy warship’s shields began to stabilize during a roll to present its port flank to the Freedom’s Bastard. “Their initial velocity, coupled with the Corvette’s trajectory, should enable them to commence an attack run before their fuel is exhausted.”
“The Light is already adjusting course and speed to evade them,” Ryan cut in with no small amount of irritation at being usurped by the ship’s Comm. stander. “There’s no way the fighters will reach it before it’s out of range.”
“Re-focus fire on the Omega’s Light,” McKnight said quickly. “Coordinate with the rest of the fleet to do the same; we can’t let them reach long range. Our allies are to break formation and attack if necessary, but put fire on Bashir’s ship!”
Captain Archibald apparently reached the same conclusion, as his battered Heavy Cruiser—which was already streaming gases through a handful of deep, glowing-hot rents in its formidable hull—surged forward in an attempt to cut off Captain Bashir’s warship.
“Lieutenant Spalding,” McKnight spun to face her XO after performing some quick math, “can we push the engines to 115% for nine minutes?”
The Bastard’s XO nodded immediately, “We’ll burn out a few heat sinks and possibly compromise the stern shielding, but we can do it.”
“Helm,” McKnight acknowledged his welcome answer with a curt nod, “make it happen; lay in an intercept course with the Omega’s Light and set the engines to 115% rated maximum output.”
“Intercept at 115%, aye,” Marcos said, and the icon representing McKnight’s ship increased its speed as it drove for the most likely intercept point with the Imperial Cruiser.
“Our allies are breaking off to engage other targets,” Ryan reported scornfully. “It looks like it’s us and the Gate, ma’am.”
“Shall I instruct our allies to pursue the Omega’s Light, Captain?” Mr. Guo asked measuredly.
“No,” McKnight shook her head, fighting against the urge to sneer. “Coordinate with the Gamer Gate to ensure we keep the Light in firing range for as long as possible.”
The ship rocked violently from left to right, and several of the bridge’s workstations flickered as Lieutenant Spalding shouted, “The port shields are gone, Captain; we’ve got major power failures throughout the ship.”
“Roll to present the starboard face,” McKnight ordered, and Helmsman Marcos quickly complied. “How are the engines?” McKnight demanded after another pair of impacts shook the ship, but those impacts were far less severe than their immediate predecessor.
“Still online and unaffected,” her XO replied before belatedly adding, “for now.”
“I’m registering major decompressions all along the port side,” Damage Control said. “I can’t contain them from here.”
“Seal off all compartments,” McKnight instructed before activating the ship-wide intercom. “This is Captain McKnight; we are in pursuit of the enemy flagship and will continue to receive fire for at least ten more minutes. We have severe decompressions throughout the ship; all hands are to immediately implement vacuum protocols. Repeat: vacuum protocols are in effect throughout the ship. This is what we trained for, people—let’s do what we came here to do,” she added before severing the line.
When she did so, she saw most of her bridge crew had begun to don their head bags—all except for herself, Mr. Guo, Helmsman Marcos and Lieutenant Spalding.
She suspected that Marcos would have donned her head bag if doing so had not endangered the ship, but she also suspected that Mr. Guo and Lieutenant Spalding had opted not to follow her order for the same reason she had not followed it herself.
The bridge was already sealed off via pressure doors, and it was also located deep within the ship. If the enemy managed to punch through their outer armor and violate the ship’s nerve center, a head bag would make no difference in the ultimate outcome of the engagement.
“You are wounded,” Lu Bu said with mixed concern and irritation after noticing Hutch was nursing his left hamstring.
“It’s nothing,” he assured her, but his stiff posture and taut voice betrayed his words.
“How bad?” she demanded, ignoring the weak attempt at stoicism.
“Well…” he grimaced, his posture relaxing fractionally as he abandoned his pathetic attempt at deception, “I felt it pop like this a few years ago—during my last game in the league right before I got carted off.”
Lynch sighed, “See…I always suspected you was a faker.”
“I once accused my wife of the same thing,” Hutch retorted, “the next day I received divorce papers.”
“Just ‘cause it hurts don’t make it untrue,” Lynch chided. “I lost three hundred grand on you when y’all failed to cover the spread that game; no way Hudson misses the end zone with you blockin’ for him.”
“So you thought I threw the game?” Hutch asked, apparently just as amused as he was offended by the arms dealer’s suggestion.
“You wouldn’t have been the first guy to cash in on your way out,” Lynch snickered. “And what with your rocky marriage, I figured your takin’ the short play was the safe bet. Looks like I was wrong about that; you’re good people in my book.”
“How did you know about my marriage?” Hutch grumbled.
“I make it a point to know the dirt on all of the best players,” Lynch shrugged. “It’s a neurosis that’s saved my skin more times than I’d care to tell.”
“Can you fight?” Lu Bu asked Hutch, having grown tired of the side conversation.
“That depends on whether or not I have to move,” Hutch said grimly, but it seemed as though there was something he was holding back. “It’s creaking with every step…it could give out any time, and then I’ll be completely immobile.”
Lynch snorted but made no further r
emark, so Lu Bu considered the situation before suggesting, “You can ride the Fragment.”
Hutch hesitated, “I’m not sure I could stay on top, ma’am. My balance isn’t—”
“Why don’t you just tell her the truth?” Lynch interrupted harshly. “Ain’t like we’re all guaranteed to get outta here; when this platform hits the surface, we’ll be in for one hell of a fight. Let’s speak truth in the meantime, shall we?”
“What does he mean?” Lu Bu asked warily, looking back and forth between the men. There was something they knew which she didn’t, and she was sick of being left out of the loop.
Hutch glared at Lynch, “How did you know? I want specifics.”
“I got me a connection at the league’s medical records office,” Lynch said dismissively. “You tell her or I will; I’ve held my tongue this long but I won’t hold it no more. Break it to her your way or I’ll do it in mine.”
Hutch looked absolutely furious, and he actually took a step toward Lynch—who looked decidedly unimpressed—before wincing and nearly toppling as his supposedly good leg buckled.
“What is wrong?” Lu Bu asked in genuine concern. “Your other leg is damaged also?”
Hutch gritted his teeth for several seconds silently before meeting her eyes somewhat sheepishly and saying, “I have a degenerative disease that’s tearing my nervous system apart. It looks like I’m entering the end stages…and when I do, I’ll require cybernetic implants and more-or-less full-time medical treatments just to breathe.”
This was news to Lu Bu, who had come to think of the mammoth smashball star as a paragon of health whose fitness and conditioning rivaled her own—and even outstripped many of the Tracto-ans with whom they had served. “What is treatment?” she asked after processing the fact that he had kept his condition a secret from her.
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