Relic Hunted (Crax War Chronicles #2)

by Terry W. Ervin II

  A narrow aluminum ladder bolted to the compartment’s wall behind the copilot’s seat led to a circular deck hatch, armored and reinforced. I climbed up and in, noting the modular housing’s minimal safety features encompassing the dual-beam pulse laser. The guns appeared to have their own bank of batteries for a backup power source. The close proximity to the pilot’s controls enabled the guns’ targeting and tracking to tie into the ship’s sensors with minimal wiring. The slapped-on afterthought that the pulse laser compartment was, if it took a direct hit, it’d shear away. Cheap and expendable, taking the turret gunner with it.

  Buckling into the gunner seat, I then switched on the power. It was a standard setup, designed for minimal retraining from one ship’s or shuttle’s pulse laser to another, especially as pulse laser gunner was a secondary or even tertiary assigned duty. I had some training and several instances of combat experience with a dual-beam pulse laser.

  I adjusted my seating and controls before spotting a compartment that held my own headset. Taking the headset, I closed my bayonet in the compartment. Keeping it without a scabbard was going to be a problem, especially if something happened. Sharp blades and zero gravity, or tumbling about didn’t mix. With the headset slipped on and plugged in, I selected Internal 1 as the primary channel.

  McAllister was giving Tahgs directions. Searching for CGIG communications could wait. Besides, McAllister or Tahgs would be more efficient plugging in to what the enemy was up to.

  “Tahgs, don’t fire up the thrust engines yet,” McAllister ordered.

  I looked back down through the hatch to see if Marguerite was still there. She was.

  “They just rearmed and launched twelve fighters ten minutes ago,” McAllister continued. “Six of those twelve are patrolling what’s left of their outpost. The others are racing off to chase the Chicher battlewagon and Felgan destroyer. Give them a few minutes and they’ll be too distant to be an immediate concern. They just started refueling and rearming a squadron on the converted escort carrier. No sense encouraging them to take additional notice of us and launch.”

  After a pause, the Senior Engineer said, “Keesay, I see you’re online. Don’t power up targeting sensors, or even rotate the guns. The dock is sending out confused reports. What they’re able to sort out is being routed through the carrier to the fighters, slowing their potential response.”

  “Won’t their sensors pick up the cascading atomic engine’s buildup?”

  “That’s why the local six are coming to investigate. It should make you feel important to know you’re our only defense, Relic.”

  “So keeping our tail near to the freighter for as long as possible is important,” I confirmed, more to clarify for Tahgs and Marguerite than myself.

  “A garbage scow’s faster and more maneuverable than us.” Mild disgust echoed in McAllister’s voice.

  “Sooo, we won’t be outrunning them?” I said, laying on a little sarcasm.

  “Six minutes, Keesay. Just be ready to shoot the bastards when I tell you.”

  “Understood, Senior Engineer.”

  Ignoring the chatter between McAllister and Tahgs, I examined the setup. One-hundred-fifty-degree range of targeting movement, vertical and horizontal. McAllister turned on the passive sensors for me. She didn’t trust me to do it right. She also preset targeting to manual with computer assist targeting. The combative engineer remembered my preferences.

  At one time I was competent as a pulse laser gunner, but that was a long time ago. I was rusty.

  Corporate colony fighters were upgraded military trainers. Slower, less maneuverable, and lighter armed than their standard military counterparts, but still lethal to an unarmored transport.

  There was a lot of debris floating within sight of my gunner’s viewport. There’d been quite a battle. Capital Galactic had apparently affixed military grade tri-beam lasers to their freighters and transports, and slapped-on armor plating. Made sense, as those were the only ships they had available. Their sensors, speed and maneuverability would be inferior to capital ships, and the armor plating would be hit and miss. If they packed nuclear reactors in the cargo spaces, they’d have plenty of energy to power their weapons. Missiles and missile launchers were another story. Fortunately for them, the Chicher armed their ships with fusion beams and balled electricity. Being R-Tech, their range and targeting systems were inferior to Capital Galactic’s armed freighters.

  I’d never seen a Felgan, let alone one of their ships in combat. The Crax burned through Felgan territory early in the war, leaving them broken and scattered. Video footage from the Silicate War gave me basic knowledge of their interstellar combat vessels. They resembled a metallic jack, like from the childhood game with a bouncing rubber ball. Not exactly, but more than anything else. The different size classes, from frigate up to dreadnought, kept the same basic structure. Carriers and troop transports had boxy sections attached to the spars near the crossbar hub. Thrust engines were mounted along the four spars. Each spar ended in a knob-like sphere which fired an advanced tech particle beam. For self-defense, they mounted turrets similar to pulse lasers, but armed with a quad set of pulse particle beams. The pointed spars without the knobs housed sensors, communications, and their space-condensing atomic engines.

  The Felgans were more technologically advanced than humans but not quite in the Umbelgarri or Primus Crax league, and they weren’t renowned as accomplished military tacticians.

  From my limited angle, I spotted what must’ve been a Felgan destroyer floating dead in space. One spar had been shot away and the rest of the hull was battle-scarred, with sheared off parts floating nearby. I also spotted battered parts of two of the Chicher twin-boomed midget frigates.

  The fight hadn’t gone all Capital Galactic’s way. Shattered colony fighters, including one where the pilot might’ve ejected. And six armored freighters, holed and sliced open looking like an angry teenager had attacked aluminum cans with an ice pick and a blow torch.

  And that was only from the limited view through my gunner’s port. That and the escort carrier, converted to its purpose from the hull of a methane freighter. Simple magnification showed it had limited launch ports and landing bay facilities. But I could see at least three tri-beam laser turrets mounted to its cylindrical hull, one covered in a patchwork of armor plates. More than a few of those plates showed signs of damage. Scars that suggested fusion beams. She was also holed, along her stern side, probably a prolonged particle beam strike.

  The fighting must’ve gotten up close and nasty because Chicher fusion beams were pretty short-ranged compared to lasers.

  The com-line was quiet so I asked, “McAllister, how did you, Guymin, Vingee and the Chicher commandos get aboard the modular dock?”

  Several seconds of silence followed. I leaned over and looked through the hatch to see if my station was still sending, if Tahgs and Marguerite heard my question. They were working, trying to familiarize themselves with the ship’s control systems and their layout. I could’ve been doing the same, re-familiarizing myself. In a few minutes it’d be life and death again.

  “They’re all dead, Keesay.” McAllister’s voice bristled with anger. “The Nuclear Pitchfork and Loki’s Lady landed in one of the shuttle bays. The Capital Galactic bastards tore the bay open with their tri-beam lasers to get at them, and a couple Chicher mini-transports. Hummelson replaced your friend O’Vorley, boarded with me. Took an MP round to the head. He was loyal, but an ass. You two would’ve gotten along.” She paused. “Everyone else died aboard the shuttles. Their bodies are floating debris along with the shuttles, and every other destroyed ship out there.”

  She continued, saying how Chicher breaching pods, the few that survived, and their midget frigates had to fight through a squadron of Crax fighters. Those pods that attached and breached were sheared away by laser fire. While she spoke, I thought of everyone aboard the Pitchfork and Loki’s Lady. Dvoracek and Axin, Detter and Devatha. All of them, dead. I’d seen enough dead friends
and comrades in my time, and pictured their bloody remains drifting, forever frozen in space.

  “When you arrived,” McAllister said, the anger disappearing from her voice, “we’d been driven back, with no escape, preparing to fight to the last man.”

  “It was you who unlocked the cell doors,” I said. It wasn’t a question. “Thanks.”

  She took a breath. “Two minute warning, Keesay. I’m counting on you to fire them up.”

  Chapter 48

  “Now, Keesay.”

  On McAllister’s order I energized my dual-beam pulse laser. I couldn’t see Tahgs. She’d closed and sealed the hatch on my order. The odds of my slapped-on auxiliary self-defense turret being blown off was high. One good hit.

  The six fighters came on straight, without any evasive maneuvers. Why wouldn’t they. We were detached and floating. The cascading atomic engine’s cycle had been triggered, but we weren’t going anywhere. “Incorrect,” I said to no one in particular, swinging and elevating the crosshairs on the lead fighter in the first of two Vic formations.

  Resembling late 20th century stealth fighters, only larger and faded cobalt in color, they were fast, but not fast enough. The lead fighter went up with a flash, my dual-beam pulse lasers pasting it with the first blast. No time to jettison. The second fighter took a direct hit to its left wing even as the mounted mini-cannon opened fire. It spun away, causing the following Vic to veer off or risk collision. The pilot managed to jettison, his escape pod vectoring away from the dock.

  A little luck for me, a little for him.

  Loss of his partners didn’t affect the third in the lead formation. His mini-cannon on the left wing and single-pulse laser mounted on the right struck home. The impacting cannon rounds sounded like a snare drum riff. The minimal armor held as the fighter shot past overhead. Ignoring him, I targeted the second scattered formation. I clipped one near the engine and scarred another with light damage near the cockpit. Both emerged at least eighty percent effective.

  “Two destroyed,” I reported over the com system. “Two light damage. They appear to be reforming beyond my field of view.”

  “Fire thrusters now,” McAllister ordered. I knew she wasn’t talking to me.

  The underpowered grav-plate struggled to maintain equilibrium as we spun sixty degrees left before accelerating. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of light beams lancing our way, flashing behind us, where we’d just been floating.

  “That was the escort carrier,” Tahgs reported. “She hit the dock.”

  “Did nothing more than scar her,” McAllister said. “Reduced intensity setting intended to cripple us.”

  “No,” I said. “Enough to kill us, but not enough to penetrate the dock’s armor. Wager it’s the setting they used on the Chicher breaching pods.”

  “The main engine section just launched and fired her engines,” Tahgs announced. “They have a self-defense gun too. One more fighter gone.”

  “Maneuvering to put the dock between us and the carrier,” Marguerite said. “She flies like a truck with four flat tires. Tahgs, coordinate with our other half for a hitching maneuver so we can get out of here.”

  Marguerite’s comparison caught my attention. She’d piloted a yacht…but was she a Relic too?

  Before we ducked behind the dock for cover, I targeted the jettisoned escape pod, wrecking it. One less trained Capital Galactic pilot. I fired a pair of bursts at the distant carrier. It was like throwing rocks at an armored personnel carrier, if I even hit.

  McAllister said, “That was against the code of combat, Keesay.”

  “They’re traitors,” I replied, checking my targeting scanners for the surviving fighters’ location. “I never signed any code with them, did you?”

  “That’ll piss them off even more, Keesay.”

  “They can only kill us once, McAllister. What would you recommend?”

  “Next time don’t offer any hope by waiting so long.”

  “Correct,” I said. They were going to strafe the engine section first. Out of my firing arc. I targeted gaps between the armor welded to the dock. “Does the modular dock have laser turrets?”

  “The Chicher shot out all of the pulse laser turrets,” McAllister said. “Two medium-range dual beam turrets still functioning. Our pilot’s keeping out of their arc.”

  This close that should be easy. On the other hand, how the heck were we going to make a break to enter condensed space travel once we reattached? Wasn’t my problem. Targeting those repair bots welding a plate over a damaged section was.

  Marguerite said, “Preparing for 180 degree pivot to align for connecting with the engine section.”

  I entered the data into my assisted targeting program. “Acknowledged, Pilot.”

  The three fighters in Vic formation swept in. The main engine section sent a series of pulse laser shots at them, missing wide left. She began her spin the same time we did. Our other half’s lasers fell out of arc the same time I got to take my shot. The fighters bore in, no longer maneuvering, trading away defense for accuracy. One fighter exploded the instant the trio opened up. My second shot missed as did my third, but my fourth tore into the trailing fighter, already damaged. Spinning, it flamed out.

  “Shock damage to the cascading atomic engine’s housing,” McAllister reported. “No penetration. Recalibrating. That means an additional five minutes to buildup.”

  “One fighter left,” I said.

  “Nine have apparently been recalled,” Tahgs reported. Eighteen minutes until they’re in range.”

  “It’ll be longer than that once we couple with the rear section,” our pilot said.

  Pretty optimistic. The remaining fighter was circling around, angling to come in beneath my range of fire. My partner gunner probably wouldn’t have a shot. “Can we communicate with our sister half?”

  “We are,” McAllister said. “Capital Galactic com equipment. They’re listening in to anything we say. Once attached we can use hardwired com.”

  “Isn’t encryption one of your plethora of expertise areas?” I asked.

  “It is, Keesay. Not a current priority. Getting into condensed space travel is.”

  “Understood,” I said. “Pilot, we have a fighter coming up, beyond—beneath my angle of fire. Probably same with my counterpart. Any help you can lend?”

  “Not until our two vessels are attached.”

  My body shifted forward as our vessel decelerated. Sliding back in response, my case of hemorrhoid inflammation announced its continued presence. One of Heartwell’s gifts. Enduring it for so long, and all the worse pains I’d suffered, it wouldn’t impact my effectiveness. I just leaned to the left and focused on the fighter I couldn’t target. Another gap in the dock’s armor presented itself. Eight consistent blasts later, bits of debris erupted from the gap, meaning I’d managed to penetrate the hull.

  I followed the remaining fighter’s trajectory as our forward section closed to dock with the rear section. The fighter pilot sent a few bursts of cannon and laser fire, but nothing sustained. Then his escape pod ejected.

  “Tahgs!” I shouted into my mic. “Marguerite, reverse thrust now. Full burn!”

  Marguerite asked, “Why?”

  Tahgs didn’t hesitate. Forward thrust pressed my back against the seat. I braced for impact. The nearby explosion rocked our ship. Marguerite and Tahgs quickly regained control. McAllister sent an intermittently digitized video feed to my secondary screen. The rear section preparing to dock with us had suffered severe damage. The ramming fighter wrecked the coupling area. The rear section spun out of control and all but one of the main thrust engines flamed out.

  “Vacate the area as best you can,” came over my com-set. It was Agent Guymin. He sounded both rote and distracted, probably piloting, intent on recovery.

  A female voice followed. Agent Vingee’s. “The director expresses his gratitude. He says to persevere.” Her comment confused me for a second, until I considered that Simms’ voice failed while w
e escaped. Beyond that, it didn’t matter. Dock surveillance would’ve seen who boarded each vessel.

  Then a Chicher’s voice chittered in their language. Already we were angling away from the modular dock, keeping it between us and the carrier.

  “Turnabout’s fair play,” Guymin said. “Godspeed.”

  Their pulse laser gunner shot the ramming fighter’s escape pod as the single engine flared from minimum to full strength, granting the wounded ship mounting speed.

  The medium class tri-beam laser turret rotated and fired on the damaged rear section, missing wide by less than twenty yards.

  That was the only shot they got before the rear section’s escape pod jettisoned. The abandoned engine section raced on until it collided next to the tri-beam laser turret. The resulting impact and explosion destroyed the surrounding structure, knocking the turret out of commission.

  “Targeting the fighter’s escape pod?” McAllister asked. “Think that will result in turnabout against them?”

  “Capital Galactic won’t grant them that mercy,” Tahgs said.

  I agreed. We also collectively knew that swinging around in a desperate bid to recover them from their pod would be a useless gesture. The enemy fighters would be upon us before the maneuver could be completed. It’d be an insult to their sacrifice. They gave us a chance, miniscule as it was. A brave gesture, even if it meant no more than an additional thirty minutes of defiance. Of freedom.

  We continued on full thrust. Fighters and one trailing armored freighter on our tail. Gaining fast.

  “At the current rate of closing,” Marguerite said, “Twelve minutes to fighter intercept.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her statement. Intercept or come within effective firing range. It didn’t matter. We continued racing toward the distant double stars, occasionally passing small hunks of debris, remnants from previous battles within the Capella system.

  My turret’s arc of fire was forward. They’d come up on our six. No way our pilot could turn us about with any reasonable degree of combat effectiveness. Swift hares, lethal ones, closing on a plodding tortoise. In this case, slow and steady was destined to lose the race.