by Jay Allan
At least Kyle’s over on Intrepid, with three of the best pilots from Dauntless…
“Commander, put me on shipwide comm.”
“Yes, sir…on your line.”
“Attention all personnel, this is Captain Barron. We are about to move against the enemy station. Ideally, we’d have spent time doing extensive scans and sending in probes, trying to get an idea of just what we’re facing. But you all know it’s been some time since we’ve seen anything that resembles ideal. That thing is sustaining the entire Union invasion force—it’s powering the advance that is killing the Confederation. If we can destroy it, or at least disable it, we can hurt the enemy far more than we can by destroying a few battleships. You all know the situation, you know the Confederation is in trouble. We can help. Fate has put us here, now…in the right place. So, whatever the station does, whatever weapons it fires or defenses it mounts, we’re going to keep at it. We’re going to stay in the fight until that thing is gone…or we are.”
Barron paused and took a breath. He believed there were some times when it made sense to sugarcoat things for the crew, to protect them from knowledge that could sap their strength and divert them from their focus. Manipulation wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t honorable, but sometimes it was necessary. Not this time, though. His people would fight here for nothing less than the Confederation itself, for their families and friends and loved ones back on whatever worlds they called home…and that was—could only be—a fight to the death.
“We have battled together before. I know your quality, your courage, and your fortitude. Now, let’s make sure the Union does as well!”
He slapped his hand down on the comm. He couldn’t see most of his people, but from the expressions staring at him on the bridge, his speech had achieved its desired effect.
He reached down to the comm, flipping on the ship to ship line. “Captain Eaton, is Intrepid ready?”
“We’re ready, sir.”
He looked over at Travis.
“Commander, are Cambria, Astara, and Condor ready?”
“All escorts report ready, sir.”
Barron sat silently for a moment, a fleeting thought of his grandfather drifting through his mind. I’ll try to make you proud.
“Commander Travis…all ships are to advance.”
* * *
“All right…we take down these fighters first. Not one of them gets away…not one. Then we re-form and hit that thing. Save your missiles…I want them launched at the station, not wasted chasing down these Union pilots.” Jamison watched the wave of enemy fighters approaching his wing. There were twenty-three, apparently all that was left of the over two hundred the station had housed before the fighting started.
He had forty-six ships in his forces, and he’d have paired them off against twice that number of enemy craft. Still, his order about the missiles could cost some lives. His people could annihilate the enemy force with a barrage, but now they would have to endure the enemy warheads coming in with no answer of their own until they reached laser range. None of that mattered. The station had to be destroyed, no matter what the cost. And an interceptor’s lasers weren’t going to do much more than scratch the paint on that thing.
More than half of Jamison’s fighters were stuck inside Dauntless’s disabled launch bays, but there was nothing to be done. Be grateful you were on Intrepid, or you’d be hanging around pacing the corridors yourself.
“You all know how important this mission is. So, let’s do the work and get this done.”
He angled his throttle, just as he saw a cluster of tiny dots moving out from the nearest enemy fighters.
Missiles.
He altered his vector, bringing his bird around, giving the incoming warheads a wide berth. The enemy missiles didn’t have the range of the Confederation weapons, and the inexperienced Union pilots tended to fire too soon, before they had a good lock. The best tactic for evading them was to buy as much time as possible before they acquired, letting the warheads expend their fuel hunting around for a target.
The rest of his fighter wing followed his example, squadrons splitting up into small groups, individual pilots with one or two wingmen, moving away from the incoming missiles. An attack on an enemy battleship was often a carefully-choreographed effort, squadrons moving in tight formations, completing their runs before the next came in. But dogfights were wild, chaotic affairs, ships flying everywhere, evading enemies, chasing targets. Squadrons became hopelessly intermixed. It was the kind of thing that heavily favored skilled and experienced pilots, and Jamison knew that would benefit his people.
Still, missiles were dangerous, a fact that was confirmed a few seconds later when one of his fighters blinked off the display. Then another one.
Did they die because you told them to hold their missiles?
He knew it didn’t matter, he’d done what he’d had to do, but it still hurt.
One of the enemy missiles picked him up, but he lost it easily, engaging his thrust and driving hard, right past the enemy formation. He kept accelerating until the missile ran out of fuel, and then he adjusted his thrust, gradually moving his vector toward the enemy fighters. He was behind most of them now, coming up from the rear. It took a little over two minutes to readjust his heading, and then he focused on the screen, watching as he got closer to his targets.
Two minutes passed. Three. The small circles on his display were growing, the range numbers displayed alongside dropping.
It was time to go hunting.
* * *
Barron sat silently, watching his fighters rip through their Union counterparts. Even without Dauntless’s squadrons, his forces out there had the upper hand. He was tense, of course, as his small fleet approached the station, though he did feel a bit of relief that the enemy appeared to be out of fighters.
“Astara reports ready, Captain.” It was the last of the three escorts to check in.
Barron nodded, but he didn’t respond immediately. The crews of the fleet’s escort vessels knew, as its fighter pilots did, that defending the capital ships was always the priority. But that didn’t make it easier for Barron to order the vessels forward. Risking loyal crews to scout out an enemy’s defenses ran against his code of honor…but failing in his mission would be worse. Far worse.
“Escorts to move forward…acceleration at 2g.”
Barron wished there was another way, but there wasn’t. The only way to see what weapons that monster packed was to advance and open fire…and see what the response was.
“Astara, Cambria, and Condor all acknowledge, sir.”
“Very well.” He sat and watched as the small blips moved out in front of Dauntless and Intrepid, toward the almost unimaginably huge Union station.
“I want engines ready for thrust on my command. All weapons stations are to remain at alert. Advise Intrepid to do the same.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And launch another spread of probes. I want that thing covered from every angle. If they eject a load of garbage, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Barron leaned back in his chair, his shirt pressing against his sweat-covered back. Dauntless’s life support was working perfectly, and the bridge was a crisp room temperature. But Barron felt like he was roasting.
“Sir, Captain Eaton confirms your orders. She is also launching an additional flight of probes.”
“Very well.”
Barron was staring at the display, but not really seeing anything. He was lost in thought, reviewing every scanning report, every scrap of data from the probes, trying to make sense of the thing he now had to destroy. He had more unanswered questions than solid info. What armament was waiting for his people? How heavily armored was the station? And, perhaps most vexing of all, how did the enemy move something that large through the transwarp lines?
Questions were coming far more easily than answers, but he knew the truth was there to be discovered. Somehow.
Suddenly, the a ligh
t flashed. He shook his head and focused his eyes back into the massive display. Cambria was gone, the small dot simply vanished from the floating blackness of the tank.
“Report, Commander,” he snapped.
“Some kind of weapon discharge. It appears Cambria has been completely destroyed, Captain.” Travis spoke stiffly, trying with limited success to hide her own shock.
“Scanning details, now! I want every scrap of data from the probes, the scanners, everything. And get Condor and Astara out of there now.”
“Yes, sir.” Travis leaned over her comm unit, snapping out orders to the surviving escorts. But before she could finish, the enemy weapon fired again. It had targeted Condor, but this time it missed, courtesy of the her captain’s quick evasive maneuvers. The deadly beam ripped by less than three hundred meters from the small craft.
“Astara and Condor confirm, Captain. They are decelerating at full thrust.”
Barron’s fists clenched in frustration. The two smaller ships were still moving closer to the enemy. It would take more than a minute for them to reduce their forward momentum to zero, and more time to accelerate away from the deadly enemy station.
He felt the urge to order the battleships forward, to rush to the aid of the cruiser and scoutship. But that was out of the question. He had to know more about that weapon—power, range, rate of fire—before he could risk Dauntless and Intrepid. But that meant sitting where he was, watching comrades die.
He slapped his hand down on his comm unit. “Commander Jamison…I need your people to attack now. Full acceleration.” He didn’t know if his cluster of fighters could do meaningful damage to a monster like the enemy station, but it was the only thing he could do, at least until he got some idea of what he was facing.
“Yes, sir…we’re going in.”
Barron just nodded. He had no idea what his fighters would be up against, how strong a defensive array the enemy facility possessed.
At least Jamison’s people kept their missiles…
Barron knew holding back the interceptors’ heavy weapons had probably cost three or four lives, pilots who might have survived if the wing had hit their adversaries with the weapons right away. Now he would see if it had been worth the cost.
“We’re getting reports on that weapon, sir. It appears to be similar to their normal primaries, a bomb-pumped x-ray laser…just larger. Much larger.”
“Estimated power output?”
“The AI’s still working on it, but preliminary estimates suggest fifty to sixty gigawatts.”
Barron didn’t answer, he just stared over at Travis’s station. He’d never heard of a laser with that kind of power. But then, he’d never faced a physical construct the size of the Union supply base either.
“Any estimate on the number of active turrets?”
“Only one so far Captain. It’s on the extreme end of the facility. Analysis of the shape of the station suggests a likelihood there is a second one on the opposite end. Though there could be more than two. We just don’t know.”
“Range?”
“Data suggests roughly comparable to our primaries…though the power of the weapon will increase as the distance declines. Preliminary projections suggest the likelihood of catastrophic damage even to a battleship at closer ranges.”
Barron nodded. That was the problem with lasers—as the distances increased, beams attenuated, losing energy before the point of impact. The Confederation’s particle accelerators hit harder at closer ranges too, but they lost far less of their effectiveness at long range. Barron couldn’t even imagine the damage from a close-range hit at those energy levels. It could destroy Dauntless with a single shot.
“Captain, the AI suggests impact strength at our maximum primary range roughly equal to our particle accelerators. However, at secondary range, it projects hitting power double to that of our primaries.”
Damn.
Barron had intended to close, to use the primaries at long range and then close to blast the station with the far more numerous secondary batteries. But now he had no choice. He had to stay outside of that thing’s close range.
“Close to primary range, Commander. And I do mean extreme range. That thing is stationary, which should give us an edge in targeting. Advise the engine room I want random thrust patterns, and I want them coordinated with our own gunnery sections. Let’s see if we can’t maintain our aim while giving them something to think about.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And relay to Intrepid. I want both ships conducting coordinated operations.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The display flashed again, and this time Condor vanished. The scoutship was small, not a major component of the tiny fleet’s fighting strength. But its crew had been fifty-three strong, and now they were all dead.
“Astara’s status?” Barron asked, but he already knew. He could see the tiny dot in the display, blasting away at full, scrambling to escape its doom.
“She’ll be outside estimated range in forty seconds, sir.” Travis’s use of the word “estimated” pounded home just how much they were relying on guesswork.
Barron tapped the comm unit again, more softly than he had done the last time. “Kyle, are you picking up those energy discharges?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to go after that location. There’s a laser there, a big one. I need it knocked out. And we suspect there is one on the opposite end of the station too.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Be as careful as you can, Kyle. That thing is bound to have strong close-in defenses. Break into two groups and hit both lasers.”
“Understood, Captain. We’re on it.”
“Godspeed, Commander.” And I hope I haven’t just sent all of you to your deaths…
* * *
“That thing has already destroyed Cambria and Condor. Dauntless and Intrepid will be entering range in four minutes. That’s how long we have to take it out. If we don’t, it’s going to start tearing apart our launch bays, our ships. So, if you don’t want to sit out here with no place to land, watching your life support gauges slip down to nothing, give me your absolute best right now.”
His eyes darted to the side, catching some movement on his scanner. Astara. The escort cruiser seemed to have made it back out of range. That was some good news. Now it was time to see if his people could create some more. Jamison had split up his force, sending half his fighters to the other side of the station under Timmons.
“Attack formation on me…remember, we’re after that heavy laser turret. That’s our priority, so I don’t care what other juicy targets you see, hold your fire for the gun.”
He stretched his hand out and gripped his fighter’s throttle firmly. “On my mark…three…two…one…mark.”
He pulled the control back, accelerating as he adjusted his vector, bringing him up over the station, toward the laser. He reached out, flipping a row of switches, arming his two missiles and bringing up the targeting screen.
The enemy’s defensive fire had been weaker than he’d expected, but now all that changed. Suddenly, turrets opened up all across the giant station, riddling his force with harassing laser fire. He arced his throttle, moving his ship back and forth as it approached, doing what he could to confound the gunners shooting at him. It was all he could do. Breaking off wasn’t an option, no matter how thick the enemy laser fire got. He had to take out that gun.
He saw symbols blinking off his display as the defensive array began to claim victims, but he ignored it. There would be time to drink to the fallen later, assuming anyone survived. For now, his people had a job to do.
He stared at his screens, evaluating the scanning data, triangulating on the exact location of the giant laser. His velocity was high, dangerously so for a ship operating so close to its target. But there was no choice. The station’s point defense was gutting his attack force. His people had to finish their assault now, while they still had the strength to do it.
; He leaned to the side as he kicked in his thrust to line up for his final attack run. That would be the deadliest moment, he knew, just before he launched his missiles. But that fact didn’t deter him in the slightest.
He punched in the final data for his missiles’ tracking systems. They were ready to fire.
He thought about going in close—crazy close—but that would be suicide. And a ship blasted before it launched did no one any good. Dying was one thing, dying for nothing quite another.
The range was less than two hundred kilometers, and the defensive laser fire was so thick it felt like he could walk on it. It was time. He squeezed his finger, launching the first missile. And then, right on its tail, he sent the second. Then he pulled back hard on the throttle, pulling his ship up and away from the station.
His eyes shot to his display, watching as the tiny dots representing his missiles moved quickly toward the station’s looming bulk. The warheads slammed into the hull, exploding with all their twenty-kiloton fury…but he realized almost immediately, he’d missed. The weapons had impacted on the hull, digging a deep wound into the station’s hull. But the laser was well defended, built into a deep cavity on the side of the station.
“That thing retracts between shots,” he snapped into his comm. “You’ve got to get in there and get a missile through that opening, or your missiles will just impact on the hull.”
He felt a surge of anger, of frustration with himself for not targeting his shot better. And now he watched as his pilots threw themselves at the laser, desperately trying to place the missiles exactly where they had to go. And he stared at the screen as each one of them matched his own performance, inflicting heavy damage on the target…but not hitting the sweet spot his gut told him would destroy the laser.
The last of his pilots pulled up, fleeing now from the deadly fire that had claimed a quarter of their number. Jamison pounded his hand on his dashboard, struggling to find an outlet for the rage he was feeling. The battleships would have to face the enemy’s heavy weapon themselves. There was no other way now. Jamison and his people had failed.
