by Blaze Ward
Qin Lun had a rather spacious bridge. Oval shaped, with his station facing in from the bow and his excellent Combat Officer, Donal McKiersky, facing him from the aft of the chamber. Six other stations were available, but only three were in use, and Kara was handling communications from the Emergency Bridge aft.
This wasn’t a warship. Not like Aquitaine thought of them. True, guns. Lots of guns. But it was a family business, so his wife had to be stationed most of the ship away from him at times like this, in case something happened. She would take over at that point.
Donal just controlled the guns.
“Twenty seconds to ambush,” Donal said now, not looking up from his screens.
“Flight deck, this is Galen,” he said, keying a second button.
“Badger,” came the growly response.
That was okay. Holger O’Ryan was a growly sort of man. Big and surly, like the knife-fighters that used to get ahead by using bulk and strength. Before Jessica cracked enough skulls together to turn command into a more democratic, academic affair.
Assuming, of course, that you didn’t own the damned ship outright, with all of the crew as employees, rather than the shareholder model common everywhere else.
“Stand by for hot launch, Holger,” Galen said.
“Kill or be killed, boss,” the man said, cutting the line from his end.
There might be more reasons for having Holger down there than the man’s pure competence at flying a modified heavy bomber. Aggressiveness counted.
“Starflower charged,” Donal announced as Galen counted the seconds.
Galen grinned. Qin Lun was a Patrol Cruiser, not a mainline warship. Didn’t need Type-4 beams on the wings. Or the Bubble Gun, which was likely to be utterly useless against a pirate Mothership anyway.
So Pops had built him something else. The Starflower.
It was a fanciful name for what amounted to a triple Type-3 beam, locked into a single focal point. Not as good as a Four. More than enough for most escorts and any warship not built as sturdy as Kali-ma. Which was most of them.
“We’re hot,” Donal announced as they emerged. “Holger, get your ass gone.”
Galen grinned. Let the sailors act all professional and such. He wanted the craziest pirates he could hire. They wouldn’t get rich, but most pirates and private vessels didn’t. They would profit-share instead, and Kara had retirement accounts set up at banks on Petron, so if they starved in their old age, it was their own damned fault.
His job was seeing that they all got fat and happy so that they got to be old.
“Shit, she really did it,” Donal groused under his breath. “Found them.”
“It’s Jessica, dumbass,” Galen countered. “Of course she did.”
“Yeah, not used to working with pros, boss,” Donal sighed.
The bridge of Qin Lun was remarkably silent. Denis and Tom Provst had both told him how useful it was to tune a different note on every gun emplacement, so a commander could track the state of the battle with his ears.
Hornswoggle. They just like blowing things up with cool sound effects, like fourteen-year-olds.
Galen watched the readouts. He had never understood the Buran thing about separating a ship into two parts. Sounded like way too many places where something could go wrong. But he supposed they were like Aquitaine and Fribourg. So much money that repairs just came out of somebody else’s capital budget.
But there were seven component sections here. One big one he assumed was the ass end of the Megalodon, and six smaller ones for the cruisers. He could see structural differences from here, which he presumed were Mako/Thresher/Tigershark related, but hadn’t paid that close of attention. Didn’t really care.
Badger cleared the locks aft with the auditory equivalent of a raised middle finger.
Indianapolis cut loose into the biggest structure with all the hounds of hell as Galen watched.
Caught somebody by surprise, to see shit exploding as her beams got home.
Donal had picked out the nearest Mako jitney and put a Starflower into it, along with all ten of the Type-3’s that could come to bear when you had someone aligned with your keel strakes.
Bucko over there started shedding parts.
A moment later, one of the other ones lit up. Jessica wasn’t looking the right way. Donal hadn’t had time to shift targets.
Four more signals appeared on his sensor board.
“Boss, friendlies just crashed the party,” Donal called out.
“Open another keg,” Galen replied, laughing.
CS-405 and Hans Bransch, leading in CA-264 and CA-410. This was going to be a bash.
Five of the Mako Energiya modules vanished on the same count, leaving the one Donal had booped and the big one.
“Kigali, we’ve got the little one,” Galen opened a general line. “Jessica could use some help.”
“Tally-ho,” the Navigator of legend replied.
Donal was firing his beams as fast as he could route power to them, on a ship Pops had designed to sit in the middle of a swarm of snubfighters you were trying to kill. It felt like a disco ball facing off with a strobe light in the middle of a dark dance floor.
Donal’s victim kept shedding pieces.
“Task Group, this is Keller, I have the flag,” Jessica’s voice came through clear. “Rendezvous at this point and go dark. I expect we’ll have company shortly. Engage and then prepare to jump out to these coordinates as soon as they figure out what just happened.”
A big blue dot appeared on the three-D map, off to one side.
“Donal?” Galen asked.
“On it, boss,” the Combat Officer said. “Recharging everything and killing inertia.”
“Sounds good,” Galen said. “Stay alert. They’re likely to come running shortly.”
Again, Qin Lun had an unfair advantage. Pops had included all the gyros Bedrov had put into an Expeditionary Cruiser, on a ship one third lighter. And the same engines. Taking out the Bubble Gun and the Type-4’s had freed up a LOT of space midship and forward.
“Contact,” Holger’s voice came over the line, along with a feed.
Makos. Three of them right now, scattered rather to hell and looking a little worse for wear.
“Everyone engage,” Galen yelled.
None of the three were close to each other, as those things went, and looked rather like sticks someone had dropped on the floor at random. One was close enough in line with Qin Lun’s bow. Donal apparently agreed.
All those gyros. Really damned useful if you had to use a Bubble Gun, which had so little traverse capability. Also worked just fine when you wanted to tattoo somebody’s ass with a Starflower. And all the rest of the guns.
Apparently, little boy over there had gotten away from Tom and Denis with his Power Absorbers as close to overloaded as you could get and not lose them.
Donal wasn’t having any of that.
Starflower. Almost a blood eagle, watching the back third of the ship drop their panels explosively. Might have just melted his engines and maybe that silly-ass, horse hopper drive thing they used.
Damn, that was a sexy view.
One of the other ones took exception. Tigershark, if he could hit them from that far away.
Shields holding but unhappy. Probably time to consider leaping away, since the four corvettes didn’t really have enough firepower to do the trick against a cruiser.
The Tigershark suddenly backlit like a nova as Galen watched.
Oh, did someone forget Badger? Or worse, ignore Holger as a mere administrative shuttle?
Dumb-ass.
Twin Type-1’s on each wingtip. Triple Type-2 forward, almost a petit version of the Starflower. And it looks like he just dumped all that into your hip from close enough to punch you, didn’t he? After Tom Kigali and friends had already lit you up.
Galen smiled. Nobody but Jessica understood how to fly like a pirate around here.
“Flit,” came Her Majesty’s call over the line. “
Coordinates sent.”
Donal didn’t look up, just slid sideways into JumpSpace, one step ahead of the law.
Galen looked at his boards. Not all that much damage had leaked through the shields. Patrol Cruiser was supposed to get hit from all sides. They had more shields than guns, exactly the opposite of Aeliaes or d’Maine.
Qin Lun dropped back into RealSpace too quickly. Galen looked at the nav feed.
Jessica had moved them less than a light-minute away from the previous engagement. He could still see the Megalodon’s Energiya, the carcass of the first monster shark rolling over in the surf as it died. One of the Makos was stranded, too. And someone had gotten what looked like a crippling shot on a different Mako.
The Tigershark was pissed, but not that badly injured. Just gone.
“New coordinates sent,” Jessica said as all five ships joined her. “Flit.”
And just like that, they were gone again.
All those nasty tall tales about Trusski came back to him. He’d figured that everyone was stretching the truth, even Denis, but even they hadn’t been bouncing like a rubber ball.
Maybe Jessica was just feeling mean.
She dropped them right back on the first rendezvous. Maybe three seconds after those other three enemy cruisers, the missing ones from the first pass, had shown up, apparently missing their first jump, or coming late to the party.
Three on three, when you added the corvettes and Badger together.
With surprise. And position. Galen watched shields and engineering while Donal unloaded everything he had into the closest target.
This wasn’t a rich freighter that they needed to capture. These were cops. Best to kneecap them in a dark alley, step back, and then kick them to death before they could radio for help.
That was when you wanted folks like Donal McKiersky and Holger O’Ryan backing you up. Shiori Ness was lovely people, but Galen just couldn’t see her trying to rip somebody’s throat out with her bare teeth. Galen believed some of the stories about Holger.
Man was ruthless.
And just like that, space was clear again. Forty-four seconds of craziness seemed to be the recharge cycle on their Capriole. Good to know.
“Flit,” Jessica ordered.
They were gone.
Out a light-minute in a different direction. Pause. Bounce back.
Nothing.
Galen figured they were gone for good.
The boards lit up with more trouble. Except it wasn’t trouble. VI Victrix and VI Ferrata were here, and hopefully had brought their own kegs.
“Task Force, this is Evan Brinich, aboard CS-405,” a new voice joined the line. “New signal tracking and decoded.”
Decoded? How in Vishnu’s name had they decoded Buran’s communications?
Except that it was the Science Officer off Kosnett’s scout. Galen had heard stories about that kid. Would have loved to recruit him, but Kosnett and Provst had both taken Galen aside and threatened to kick his ass personally if he tried.
Something about the kid being a First Centurion, one of these days. Maybe a First Lord of the Fleet.
Whatever. That was tomorrow’s problem.
“Task Force, this is Keller,” she said.
Didn’t really sound like her, unless you wanted to visualize the woman half naked and covered in someone else’s blood, with more pouring from her mouth and a bunch of razor-sharp teeth. And blades in each of a dozen hands.
Galen hadn’t been there when Jessica took the throne, but he’d seen images. And better, heard stories from Uly and Yan.
So yeah, maybe.
“We’re not going into this like a squadron,” Jessica continued. “Everyone will jump on my call, and drop out on the location with whatever vector and alignment they feel is appropriate. From there, the next set of coordinates are back to the L4 where the rest of the fleet is waiting. Stand by for jump…Execute.”
Qin Lun shivered and fell out of the universe, the little brother to the other three cruisers, and the mean cousin to the corvettes. Worst case scenario, that Megalodon had limped off and met up with the other ships. So battleship, mauled; and six cruisers, three beat to shit.
Oh, what the hell.
Galen opened a line to the Emergency Bridge. Kara’s face lit up.
“This is no time for fooling around, Galen,” she announced in a voice everyone in both rooms laughed at.
“Not so sure about that, beautiful,” he grinned. “But you’re right. Donal and the others would just want to watch. “
“And provide color commentary,” she replied. “Everything good forward?”
“Yup,” he said. “Just wanted to smile at you some while we waited. Got a few minutes to the next drop out.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Kara grinned.
“Hey, you knew that when you married me.”
She cut the line anyway. Her way of reminding him to get back to work.
Galen sighed.
“Your own crew handbook frowns on quickies during operations, boss,” Donal’s eyes gleamed with laughter.
Galen laughed along with him, and everyone else.
Might have to reconsider that, at some point. Or maybe go back to flying Marco Polo or building a 4-ring Cargo Mothership. Then he could fool around with his wife anytime he felt like it.
Instead, he checked his boards. Engineering had everything rerouted or shut down. The armor had held in most places, and none of the beams had penetrated deeper than a single chamber. Since nobody was that close to the outer hull right now, no casualties.
At least on this side. Over there, it would be different story. But that was the price you paid, trying to conquer the galaxy.
Qin Lun rediscovered reality at Jessica’s coordinates. No Megalodon, which was nice. Four banged up cruisers, which told him that they really had damaged two of them harder than expected.
Best part? Everyone here was in the process of backing slowly into those missing Energiya cradles that had gotten away earlier. Like they were about to fly away with tails tucked in. But they weren’t going to get to.
Man, talk about getting caught with your pants down. No place to maneuver. No velocity at all as you walked slowly backwards into your dock.
And most of your guns either obscured by superstructure or blind-spotted because of the way folks were coming out of Jump.
Donal must have been feeling feistier than usual. He came out at high speed, but from a little ways away from everyone else.
Ye Olde Fashioned Jousting Pass attack.
And they had arrived first, barely.
Starflower found that stupid Tigershark Badger had been dancing with earlier. Worse, his shields were down. Power Absorbers. Whatever. Naked metal and a blowtorch.
Oopsie.
Galen had never actually seen a warship explode in combat. Wasn’t supposed to be possible. You stabbed the bastard to death with an icepick, and either he ran away bleeding, or you killed some critical component and he surrendered.
Or Buran ships blew themselves up to prevent capture. This guy hadn’t gone willingly. Or most of the scuttling charges had failed. Big pieces broke off. Floated away in three dimensions as Donal shifted his bow aim to the next victim.
Indianapolis had emerged closest. That might be a Thresher over there from the look of him. If so, he was in even worse shape, because his Mauler was a DEMP gun. Directed ElectroMagnetic Pulse. Kill your computers and not the people.
Great way to capture cargo vessels. Maybe he should look into replacing the Starflower? It would work great on pirates who thought they were all that and a bag of chips, too.
At least the Thresher was able to fire back before Jessica’s folks got a second salvo into his stern. And then he started tumbling in three dimensions. More or less intact, if held together by a strip of outerhull that hadn’t sheered under the torque of the explosion that took out his engineering spaces.
And just like that, combat was over.
Galen counted noses.
Somebody had Mauled Qin Lun when he wasn’t looking, but the beam had mostly missed. Would still need about a week with a buffer and a new paint job. Probably the missing Mako.
One had escaped. Galen rewound the logs.
Yup. Bugger jumped from inside his Energiya cradle, one beat ahead of Alber’s Goddess of War. Cradle was shattered. Ship made it away. Mostly.
The others hadn’t expected any sort of dance party.
About the time Donal got all that forward inertia killed enough to come back for more, the remaining ships that could had committed seppuku. Boom, boom, boom, like soap bubbles.
Galen was utterly horrified, but kept his face calm.
Corynthe was a pirate nation. You captured ships when you were a pirate, but never blew them up. And nobody took slaves. Way more cost effective to ransom off the valuable prisoners and dump the rest back on a planet somewhere. Or recruit them into your own crew.
This had been a slaughter worthy of Jessica’s War with the galaxy.
The only thing missing were all the Hammerheads, but they had not accompanied the cruisers. Must have escaped on a different vector, but sure as hell weren’t going to piggyback home on their momma. Both the Megalodon and its Energiya were dead killed.
“Task Force, this is Keller,” her bloodied voice haunted him. “Flit and home. Good job.”
Good job? Lady, we just killed how many thousand men and women? You call that good?
But yeah, this was Jessica. She needed pirates, sure. But she also needed ruthless killers. People like Robbie, Alber’, and Tom Kigali. And Tom Provst.
This wasn’t about trade negotiations and quarterly profit statements.
Jessica was fighting a war for the future of mankind.
Nothing less.
And she needed him to help. Needed all of Corynthe. All of Aquitaine. All of Fribourg. Anybody else that would step into the breech and kill robot starships. Even those dumbass cops at Lincolnshire.
Qin Lun slid sideways under Donal’s sure hands, and headed back to the rest of the team.
And the war.
