by PP Corcoran
Adriana pulled up wildly as another line of rail gun fire arced toward her, flicking the Lancer into a tight spiral turn while pushing the throttles to the fire walls. Adriana was pushed back in her cockpit’s seat, her G-suit expanding, forcing blood to her brain as she fought the stars filling her vision. The threat indicator screamed piercingly. Adriana’s eyes refused to focus properly on her instrument panel. Instinctively she squeezed the trigger on her control column, loosing off her remaining Penguin missile, which leapt dutifully from its restraining clamps, solid chemical rocket motor igniting the slim missile, targeting the nearest vessel its tiny computer brain identified as being hostile: a K’Tai fleet carrier.
More by luck than design, the slim missile danced between the high velocity steel ingots that were the ammunition of K’Tai rail guns. The arrival of the far larger Asp missiles of Task Force Scorpio forced the K’Tai defensive system operators to make a choice: continue to engage a single human fighter, or the shoals of Asp missiles descending upon them. The K’Tai logically chose to switch their fire to the onrushing multi-megaton Asps. Rail guns and turbo lasers lashed out with incomprehensible amounts of energy, swatting the Asps from space. Those making it through the barrage of fire detonated in nuclear fireballs against the carrier’s shields. Shield generators whined in protest until, for a fraction of a second, one failed, exposing a section of armored hull. Into this gap slipped Adriana’s Penguin. At a fraction of light speed, the penetrator head of the missile sliced into the heavy ablative armor of the carrier, burrowing the small kiloton-yield warhead deep into the armor before detonating. Chunks of armor vaporized instantly. Outer hull skin buckled and gave way as the shock wave punched its way through the hull, exposing the carrier’s innards to nuclear fire and radiation. The lucky ones died instantly. Others were swept into the cold darkness of space, surviving long enough for their brains to register their imminent deaths as their blood boiled and cold froze their limbs.
The huge carrier shrugged off the impact as emergency bulkheads slammed shut, sealing off the damaged areas, and those fortunate survivors of the initial impact prayed for rescue to reach them before they ran out of air or died from their injuries.
#
Aboard the Cheetah, Robert Matheson sat stock still in his command chair, the only sign of his inner tension the whitening of his knuckles as he gripped the chair’s arms. He was fixed on the tactical display, as if by strength of will he could urge the wave of Asp missiles toward the K’Tai fleet who were intent on sealing the fate of Louise Alderman and her two carriers. Task Force Scorpio had gone to full military power immediately after launching its strike. Robert had calculated that the intensity of the ECM emitting from the first wave of Asps would be enough to blind the K’Tai to the task force’s radical maneuver. The lack of a countermove by the K’Tai fleet as Cheetah and her comrades swept past them appeared to justify his gamble.
The tactical display flashed an update and Robert released a breath he was unaware he had been holding. The blue friendly icon of the fast attack carriers Kraken and Bremen was slowly but surely pulling away from the mass of red icons representing the larger, but crucially slower, K’Tai warships. Barring any major upsets, the carriers should make the edge of the Harbridge Zone and translate into the safety of hyperspace. Robert rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Louise and the carrier crews may have escaped the K’Tai ambush, but the cost had been the loss of virtually the entire air wings of both carriers. Add that to the constantly updating casualty and damage list, and it was obvious Task Force Scorpio’s carrier element was a spent force. Robert’s entire plan was now in question. The approach of Commander Del Mastro, a data slate in her hand and a grim look on her face, pulled Robert from his somber study of the casualty list.
“The provisional enemy damage estimate is in, Admiral. It’s not as good as we hoped, given Admiral Alderman’s attack was so badly… eh… compromised.”
Robert let out a gruff laugh at Del Mastro’s choice of words. “Call it what it is, Commander. A failure.”
The intelligence chief gave him a weak smile before continuing in a matter of fact tone. “I wouldn’t call it a failure, Admiral. True, we were caught out by the K’Tai, who obviously anticipated the ambush, but we’ve still inflicted considerable damage.” Del Mastro tapped a command into her slate, Robert’s display filling with scrolling lists of enemy ships and probable damage. Robert ran an eye down the list. His disappointment at being out foxed by the K’Tai was replaced by a growing sense of disbelief as he read the report.
“It would appear, Admiral, the fabled K’Tai navy is not as strong as we were all led to believe.”
Robert locked eyes with his intelligence chief for a moment before giving her a wink, swinging his chair to address the Communications Officer. “Signal Ardent and Illustrious. They may begin their attack run!”
#
“My lord. The human fleet has deceived us! Their missile attack was a ruse. They have broken contact and are headed in-system.”
Harvik turned in surprise, striding to the tactical station, the operator wisely removed himself as he read the angry scowl on Harvik’s face. It took only a moment for the fleet commander to understand what had happened. The humans’ attempt to ambush him with their carriers had been part of a more complex plan aimed at drawing his ships away from the inner system and their goal. Agate itself!
“Order the fleet in pursuit. Now!” Harvik shouted.
The bridge burst into motion as orders were relayed. Harvik stood like a rock in a stormy sea, gaze glued to the main display, upon which was listed the latest damage reports from the fleet. The elderly K’Tai’s stomach tensed as he read through the destruction caused to his prized fleet by the human missile salvo. Four heavy cruisers and six light cruisers had simply ceased to exist, engulfed in a rain of nuclear fire. Another seven cruisers were temporarily disabled and were rushing to make underway repairs. Two of his mighty battleships had sustained enough damage for their captains to inform him they would require repair time in a base shipyard to bring them back to fighting strength.
Worst of all, Harvik’s own Walak, flagship of the fleet, had sustained a single missile hit which, by sheer chance, had penetrated to the starboard munitions store. The chain reaction of exploding ordnance had caused severe damage to Walak’s main engineering deck, leaving the flagship wallowing on reserve power while the crew frantically to repaired the damage. Harvik slammed his fist down, causing the display to shatter. Pieces of glass cut into his hand, but he felt no pain. Spots of blood fell unseen to the deck. He had underestimated the humans, both their cunning and their weapons. He would not do so again! He might not be able to catch the human warships closing on Agate, but he had left a sizable force in orbit. The human carriers may have escaped him, but their fighters now had no place to replenish or refuel. His own fighters were satisfying their own vengeful blood lust. There would be no prisoners taken this day! That left the human cruisers racing toward Agate. Their missiles’ striking range might have come as an unpleasant surprise, but he still outnumbered them in ship numbers, type, and most importantly, number of missiles. He would use the ships he had left to guard Agate as an anvil, while his pursuing ships would be the hammer. A decisive victory would make the humans think twice before attempting to face the K’Tai in combat again.
“Communications. Contact Commander Pils. Apprise him of our current situation and my belief the humans are heading for Agate. He is to get underway immediately and intercept them as far from the planet as possible.”
#
“Update from Shield Zero Two, Admiral!”
“Show me,” Robert said. The strain of the past hour, as the overwhelming K’Tai fleet had chased his task force sunwards, was telling on every member of the bridge crew. Robert kept his advance just above the speed of the pursuing K’Tai ships, tantalizingly close to their powered missile range. Robert’s gaze flew to the tactical display. The eight planets of the Agate system blinked into ex
istence. As if he was a mighty god looking down on the ecliptic plane, the full splendor of the system was revealed. Icons of red and blue moved ever so slowly. With the tap of a control, the view changed from one of a god’s-eye view, resolving itself into one of greater detail. The blue icons of Task Force Scorpio advanced steadily toward the heart of the system. Trailing behind them came the massed red icons of the main K’Tai force, a few solitary icons representing slower-moving ships spread out behind the main group like a trail of breadcrumbs. And there, formed up before Task Force Scorpio, was a solid wall of red icons. The ships the K’Tai had left in orbit around Agate, positioned to block his approach to the planet, no doubt intent on holding him in place while the main K’Tai fleet caught up with him. Squeezed between both the enemy forces, Robert and the remaining ships of Task Force Scorpio would be systematically annihilated.
“Yes!” Robert’s hand banged loud on his armrest and caused a few of the bridge crew to jump in their seats. “They’ve taken the bait.”
Commander Del Mastro nodded her head in agreement from where she stood by Robert’s command chair. “It would appear, Admiral, the K’Tai have committed their reserves.”
Robert’s fingers flew over the keys sunk into his chair’s armrest. On the tactical display, a thin yellow line appeared. The yellow line protruded from Task Force Scorpio’s lead ship, passed through the waiting K’Tai warships, and ended at Agate. Robert input another string of commands and a blinking green diamond appeared approximately halfway between Robert’s ships and those of the waiting K’Tai. From the green diamond a second line emerged, this one brushing past the stationary K’Tai warships, angling toward the limit of the Harbridge Zone and safety.
“Navigation. Designate indicated coordinates as Waypoint Alpha.” On the display, the blinking green diamond now had the word Alpha beside it. “Upon reaching Waypoint Alpha, the fleet will alter course and assume my designated route.” Once more the tactical display changed. The yellow line indicating the predicted course of the task force beyond Waypoint Alpha disappeared, superimposing itself on the course plotted by Robert.
Del Mastro leaned her head in toward Robert’s, her voice barely above a whisper. “Cutting it a bit close, aren’t we, Admiral? That course brings us within my best guess as to the powered missile envelope of the K’Tai blocking force.”
“A fact I am fully aware of, Helen, believe me.”
Del Mastro blinked in surprise at Robert’s use of her given name, especially from an officer who so rigidly stuck to protocol. It was an indication of the stress he must be under, something Del Mastro chose not to comment on.
“We need to keep the K’Tai firmly focused on us if Ardent and Illustrious are to succeed.” For a brief second, a wave of guilt passed over Robert’s face before it returned to its normal inscrutability. “For the sake of those who have already paid the dearest price, we must succeed, or their deaths will have been for nothing.”
#
Thorvid Reinmann paced the cramped bridge of the Warlock class cruiser BPS Ardent like a caged bear. Along with her squadron mate, BPS Illustrious, Ardent comprised the picket Admiral Alderman left behind, to silently observe the Agate system, while the remainder of the Border Patrol’s Sixth Independent Cruiser Squadron had fled the invading K’Tai. From their position, well beyond the system’s Hardbridge Zone, they silently watched as the K’Tai pounded Agate’s threadbare defenses from orbit, before hundreds of troop transports dropped from their motherships, descending on the planet like a dark swarm of locusts.
For twenty-five days, they observed the comings and goings of K’Tai ships; every week a hyper-capable corvette, the smallest human vessel able to traverse the turbulent realms of hyperspace, arrived with instructions before returning to fleet headquarters in Doberman with the limited take from the aging border patrol vessels’ sensors.
Six days ago it all changed. The courier arrived as normal, but carried details of Task Force Scorpio’s planned attack and Reinmann’s part in it. When Reinmann first read the audacious plan, he was glad that he was alone in his cabin at the time. His open-mouthed shock, closely followed by a string of colorful expletives would have caused consternation among his bridge crew.
Reinmann had been a junior lieutenant serving aboard the battleship Dangerous during the Lorentian conflict. He had known Robert Matheson by reputation only. Though both men had served on the same ship, Reinmann could not recall ever meeting the man who was now a rear admiral and commander of Task Force Scorpio.
An excited call from the communications officer halted Reinmann’s pacing. “Incoming signal from Cheetah, sir… You may begin your attack run.”
Reinmann returned to his seat and sat down heavily. I hope to hell the admiral’s feint has drawn off any K’Tai ship bigger than a destroyer, if not this is going to make the charge of the Light Brigade look like a brilliant military maneuver. “Very well. Battle stations! Bring us to flank speed. Load all missile bays. Arm the rail guns. Charge the weapons banks.”
The whooping of the battle stations klaxon reverberated through Ardent and Illustrious. Crew hurried to unmanned posts. Missile crews activated the hoists that brought up the twenty-five-meter-long Asp missiles from their heavily armored magazines. Rail gun crews, probably the most exposed of all the crewmen on a modern warship as they were forced to fight their guns from turrets protruding from the outer hull, sealed the turret bulkheads, ensuring their lightweight vacuum suits, the only things that would save them if their turrets were pierced by shrapnel exposing them to the airless coldness of space, were double checked. Supercooled capacitors surged with power, ready to feed the power-hungry gigawatt lasers whose ugly snouts protruded from the hull of the cruisers like stubby porcupine spines. Within minutes, the Fire Control Officer reported the ship was ready in all respects, and the battle stations klaxon was silenced. An eerie silence descended throughout the ship.
“Navigation. Time to target?” asked Reinmann as he shuffled to get comfortable in his worn command chair.
“One hour forty-two minutes, sir.”
#
“Enemy ships are changing course, my lord! They are making a break for the edge of the Harbridge Zone! They are trying to escape, my lord.”
Lord Harvik nodded slowly at the not-unexpected news from his second in command. Harvik had not been the only one to wonder at the human commanders’ seemingly unhurried progress toward the inner system. Golar, Harvik’s second, had raised this very issue and could offer no explanation. The human ships had proved they could outpace their K’Tai equivalents. They had proved their missiles had a greater range, yet even now they had not fired on the blocking force of Commander Pils, instead choosing to close the range. Harvik eyed the events unfolding before him with a fresh eye, like a chess master attempting to fathom the strategy of his opponent. The K’Tai’s attention was drawn to the ships of the blocking force. Commander Pils was not the most original of thinkers, but he was solid and dependable. When he received an order, he would follow it through to the letter. With a sickening realization and a deep hope that he was wrong, Harvik tapped commands into his comp, expanding the section of his display showing the blocking force. As the display sharpened, individual ship names appeared beside each ship. The cold in Harvik’s stomach became a lump of solid ice. Pils had stripped the planet clean of every warship. There was not a single K’Tai warship worthy of the name left in orbit around Agate!
#
Hermes Station hung in geosynchronous orbit high above Agate. To have called the ten million tonne Hermes Station a marvel of modern engineering would be an understatement. To call it aesthetically pleasing would be a downright lie. Hermes Station was a prime example of the kind of monstrosity a civilization that had conquered the secrets of anti-gravity could build when the design was driven by function and efficiency alone; after all Hermes Station was the primary facility for shipping Redlazore out of the system and importing goods to the surface of Agate. It looked remarkably like four donu
ts hanging from a central spike. The single long central core was connected to the donuts by spindly arms. The central core was over 100 stories tall and held the main administration, accommodation and engineering levels. The four donuts were each twenty stories tall, easily big enough to service even the largest modern freighter. The K’Tai had secured the station intact during their initial invasion and had not only been using it as a hub for moving Redlazore off planet and into the waiting holds of freighters, but it had also taken on a secondary role as a fleet servicing station for their naval vessels in the Agate system, evidenced by the numerous troop transports which lay moored to the station’s numerous docking ports.
Aboard BPS Ardent, Thorvid Reinmann looked impassively on as the gigantic station slipped into range of his missiles. Still he held his fire. Every passing second his two cruisers moved closer to the station was another percentage point increasing his missiles’ chances of striking their targets.
The lieutenant at Tactical turned to face his captain. “Sensors show increased activity in the power plants of three enemy troop transports, sir.”
