ROMA

by R. A. Ender

  No longer needing to hide, the scanner constantly performed active scans to update the visible information. At any time, Robin or Richard could highlight any detail to gain even more specific information that they personally customized over years of experience in combat situations.

  Today, Richard only wanted to know where the targets were relative to the bomber. He knew it would take him only about fifteen minutes in a straight line at maximum speed to enter the atmosphere and be safe. Therefore, there were a lot of ships further away that could not harm him. However, there were a lot of ships much closer that were already in striking distance and would get closer very soon.

  At the moment, the scanner revealed no fighter craft. That was a huge relief and a great bonus. “Couldn’t have asked for a better distribution I think, eh?” Robin commented.

  It was true. The large Dreadnaught posed no threat, its big guns couldn’t target them, and its fighters were behind and not able to catch up in such a short space and time. Without fighters between them and the planet, the Imperial fleet’s best chance to take them down was lost. Scanning the field, Richard could only find one wing of fighters that could catch them, but only if they failed to enter the atmosphere beyond the twenty-five minute mark which he doubted.

  Richard was debating about which course to take when Robin spoke up again. “Think we should just try the straightest route possible?”

  She paused for a moment and brought a couple of ships up in more detail. “These two picket ships are really our only serious threat. If we run wide of the one on the right, should mean the one on the left can’t hit us. We should be able to absorb or avoid most of the shots from the one on the right. Really, I think we should just go for it.”

  As she finished, they saw a few blasts light up behind them from a couple of ships at their extreme range making an effort. Odds weren’t good they could hit the ship from where they sat.

  Richard looked around and began nodding. “Yeah, I agree, seems like we can just run this one. Ok, set the computer to monitor the ship on the right and auto maneuver us around their shots. You keep an eye out for incoming threats, and I’ll watch that picket ship on the left.”

  Turning aside for a moment to check the time to target information, he continued. “Baring anything crazy like a micro jump this close to the planet, I think we’ll be there in thirteen minutes. Hold tight.”

  And with that, Richard rolled the ship and gunned the engines for a final acceleration to their full speed.

  As they fell toward the planet at many stadiums a second, the two picket ships grew larger and larger. The ship on the left had yet to open fire, probably realizing that due to the angle, it had little hope of hitting the small bomber from that distance. The ship on the right was taking no such lackadaisical approach. The moment the bomber had entered range, they had been firing their guns at full strength. So far, they were unsuccessful, the ship had not even initiated a maneuvering thrust to jump the ship up, down, left or right to avoid a gun blast. The sensors could track shots, trajectories and quickly move the ship around space to avoid the shot without affecting its forward movement or course. Once they got closer, it was likely they would start getting jerked around quite badly by the automated system and might have to turn it off and just take the hits. Hopefully, the shields would hold.

  The ship continued to plunge toward the planet. The blue water of New Earths vast ocean filled the cockpit view. They were on the far side of the planet, opposite the large single continent land mass that dominated the other side. On this side of the world, even the cloud cover was minimal. The blue water and the light it reflected turned the ship's cockpit a bright blue tone, with flashes of various colors as gun shots passed near enough to change the color for a second.

  As Richard began to lose focus looking at the blue water in front of him, the picture suddenly changed as a gray hull ship exited hyperspace right in front of them.

  “Hades be damned!” Richard cursed, as he yanked the controls to pull the ship sharply to one side. Immediately, Richard could feel the shields taking hits and the hull of the ship shuddering. Rotating the little fighter and moving wildly ended the shuddering, and gave both of them an image of what was happening, though they had to look up as the ship was now hanging above them in space.

  It was a medium-sized warship, just their basic square hull, four engine design known as the “Four”. Most IAE ships didn’t have names in the Defense Force records, just a class and a name based on the number of engines. Naming the ships didn’t offer a lot of benefits and often led to confusion.

  This particular ship had obviously completed a micro jump from somewhere else in the nearspace. It was a dangerous thing to do, as the gravity near a planet fluctuated so much that it was impossible to properly calculate a hyperspace jump with the precision needed to avoid huge risks. Obviously, the IAE fleet commander felt they were that big a risk.

  Smart commander, Richard thought to himself as he tried to maneuver the bomber out of easy shooting range for the newly emerged ship. It was not an easy thing to do as the ship was so close and the bomber was just hanging in space above it. On the positive side, the ship was completely blocking any firing solution available to the two picket ships.

  With a couple of quick turns and blasts of acceleration, Richard had the bomber traveling back toward the blue water. Robin was using several of the bombers exterior guns to fire at the warship as it fell behind them. Despite this, every few seconds the ship shuddered from a hit, or from the auto maneuver system jumping the ship to a side. This meant that Richard had one eye on the shield strength and heat levels while the other kept them straight on course for the blue water.

  Richard’s first sign of a serious issue behind the ship came from Robin’s reaction. It was a simple curse, “Oh, Pompeii!”

  She never got to explain as the ship suddenly lurched off course and a wave of heat and radiation tossed them about.

  Richard couldn’t turn to look at what had happened or his displays, he was too focused on getting the ship to right its course. Robin, however, had the freedom to fill him in.

  “Another ship just jumped in and collided with that warship. Wow!” she exclaimed, obviously astounded by the developments. “Textbook case for why you don’t micro jump near a planet. That ship is in half...”

  Another wave from the explosion cut Robin’s sentence off as the little fighter was tossed to one side and began to spin. The auto manoeuvre system cut in and righted the course quickly, but left the fighter falling toward the planet backward, with the view screen pointed out to space.

  With the ship backward, Richard and Robin watched a third explosion wave come toward them. A lesser wave from space explosions, gasses and radiation emissions from the destroyed hulls of two ships, it only vibrated the small craft this time. One of the ships had clearly been cut in half by the collision, and the two halves were floating away from each other. The other ships front section was completely missing and it was spiraling backward, slowly, trailing a tail of debris, gas, and explosions as it went. The colorful scene spread the near orbit area in red and green light as explosions and fires burned. Both ships were completely disabled which eliminated them as a threat, and at this moment, that was all Richard cared about.

  I bet that commander doesn’t try that again, Richard thought. That was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

  As they watched, the picket ship that had avoided firing on them was clearly moving to assist, putting its energy into its engines, and turning its weapons off. The white light and trail of energy blazed brightly against the black of space. The second picket ship had stopped firing on them as well, likely to avoid accidently blasting the ship behind them.

  “If you think they’ll hold off for long, don’t count on it. Their firing solution will be clear in a minute.” Robin said, responding to his thoughts before he even communicated them. They just both knew what the next steps were. It didn’t have to be said.

  With a quick touc
h of the controls, Richard spun the fighter on its axis to face back toward the planet. Once corrected, he engaged the engines again to continue increasing their speed and re-engaged the auto manoeuvre system, focused backward toward the picket ship that could, if it chose to, continue to snipe at it from afar.

  “Good news is I can’t see anyone else that can hit us,” Robin continued explaining as Richard maneuvered. “If you can handle that picket ship, I’m going to start getting detailed near space scans so we have information about that fleet.”

  Richard nodded but quickly spoke up assuming Robin couldn’t see his nod. “Of course, go ahead. I bet Heather will have all that information, but a backup is always good.” Glancing over at the time to target readout showing only three minutes, Richard reached over to open the communications signal.

  He initiated a preprogrammed automated signal. He had programmed it with New Earth Defense Alliance and Confederate Defense Force codes. On top of that, he opened a direct communication line which he broadcast openly. He knew everyone around would hear this message and he did it on purpose.

  “This is Fleet Admiral Richard Hilbornus of the Confederated Union of Worlds Defense Force. I have remained hidden and protected but am fleeing certain capture and arrest. I am requesting asylum on New Earth, I repeat, asylum on New Earth. Please allow me to land.” Pressing a few buttons put that message on repeat broadcast and Richard returned to his flying.

  The broadcast would hopefully provide some doubt as to whether he had any type of fleet backing this incursion. If even a small thought was that he was simply alone seeking protective asylum, it would mean the IAE fleet was not completely prepared. No matter how unlikely, the possibility that he was all alone would make them act differently and hopefully, prepare a little poorer as a result.

  As the little Nemesis bomber entered the atmosphere, Richard stopped looking at the picket ship and began monitoring the hull temperature of the ship. As they were plunging headlong into the atmosphere, they would heat up even faster from the friction with the air, however thin at this altitude. The ship was equipped with an Aerodam shield, in so far as it had a physical repulsion setting on its protective shields. Though this wouldn’t be like a true aerodam shield that atmosphere capable fighters carried, where the physical repulsion shield was shaped and tuned to offer the best possible aerodynamic profile, it would protect them upon entry.

  The problem was, that picket ship was waiting for them to flip that setting so that they could open fire with energy weapons, which without an energy repulsion shield would mean a fairly quick destruction. If they got far enough in before flipping, they would be completely safe. Richard was hoping to take it to the limit.

  As he watched the heat readouts build, he also observed the flare of the heat as the air outside began to glow deep reds, then brighter and brighter to orange and yellows. The heat readouts were already at their maximums as the first white flames began to trace up from the hull.

  “How hot did Mato say this ship could get, really?” Robin asked out loud, not actually expecting an answer.

  Richard decided to answer anyway as Mato had made him smile. They were so close to safety that his inner excitement and relief was beginning to burst out.

  “I don’t remember, but he told me that we would lose the exterior guns first, as their attach points apparently have a lower heat threshold. I was planning to wait for both of them to burn and fly off before I switched over.” Richard said with a big smile.

  Robin was smiling, as she went back to her work.

  As the heat sensors were useless, Richard was now watching the power transfer readouts. Both exterior rear guns were still indicating a continuous power transfer. The top and bottom guns were not in agreement. The top was still continuous, but the bottom was offline. Richard expected they would fail first, as they were facing the atmosphere burn head on.

  As he watched, the top gun also showed a power failure, and then, before he could say anything to Robin, both rear guns showed power failures. All the guns had just burned off, time for the aerodam shields, Richard thought to himself.

  Flipping a switch, a shield change was visible in the sparkling wave that surrounded the ship for a moment before disappearing. More evident, the air outside the ship’s hull immediately stopped showing any color and the entire exterior of the shield envelope blazed to life with a brilliant white glow, leading to a long tail of colors fading from yellow to a deep red.

  By that time, though, they were nowhere near the picket ship and no shots were fired. At this point they were safe. They had made it.

  Though less experienced officers might have celebrated or reacted, Robin and Richard had been around too long. They knew that nothing was done until this ship landed on the ground.

  And they were still a while from that moment.

  CHAPTER 27

  Heather breezed into the command center of the New Earth Defense Alliance headquarters building at LaGuardius Seccus less than ten minutes after she left her home. The huge clepsydra display in the command center showed her the various times of the Confederacy down to the second. From the moment she had left her home on base and stepped into the transport lift, she had been watching the seconds drip away. Now that she had arrived, she paused for only a moment to observe how long precisely it had taken her before moving on.

  “Tribune, report!” Heather commanded as soon as she had seated herself at her station. Though she knew she would receive a concise, thorough and accurate verbal report, she immediately began to pull up her command console to obtain the information directly.

  “Legatus,” The Tribune in command began, before pausing and bowing respectfully for five seconds. Heather had changed many things when she had taken over as Praetor Imperator Legatus of N.E.D.A., but the tradition of transfer of command she had retained. Though the Defense Force verbal transfer was faster, it lacked respect and failed to convey reverence or authority. The bow did so perfectly. In addition, depending on the rank, the bow became longer.

  Once the Tribune raised his eyes again, it was customary for the senior officer to acknowledge with a two-second bow of the head, before raising your head and opening your arms at the same time. This Heather did.

  “Legatus, in the last ten minutes, we began to detect IAE fleet movement. We clearly tracked two micro jumps in near space from points further out to a point closer to the upper atmosphere. These two ships collided violently. Within a minute of this incident, we began to receive an open communication using N.E.D.A. and Defense Force codes, as well as an open audio transmission.”

  At that point, the Legatus moved to open the communication, but Heather waved him away. “Continue your report Tribune, the audio doesn’t matter.”

  With a brief respectful bowing of the head, the Tribune continued. “Yes, Legatus. A few moments later, we detected a small craft entering the planetary atmosphere. It has been identified as a Nemesis Class Three Bomber with Confederated Union of Worlds Defense Force markings. The audio transmission has been directly connected to that ship and we believe it is genuine.”

  Pressing a button on his panel, the Tribune projected an image of the craft traveling on the far side of the planet, on a course toward LaGuardius Seccus.

  “We have not communicated with him directly and we are tracking him. We have a turmae of Squalus Fighters flying out from Garouve to intercept, and a classis of Liburnians tracking him. We can engage at any time.”

  At that moment, Heather interrupted. “You keep saying ‘him.’ Do we know it is a male pilot?”

  The Tribune nodded, “Yes, Legatus. His voice is broadcast in the audio transmission, though it is a recorded message and repeated.”

  It was now Heather’s turn to nod. “Continue, Tribune.” She commanded more than asked.

  “Yes, Legatus. The only other news is that the IAE fleet has begun to reorganize itself and move closer to the planet. It appears they are attempting to assist and protect the two damaged ships. They are not acting in
a provocative manner. I can only guess that this small fighter is all alone. His transmission seems to indicate that.”

  The Tribune bowed his head again and stepped back behind Heather’s station.

  Thinking for only a moment, Heather knew she needed to speak with the pilot. I need to know if he is alone and seeking safety or if this is something bigger.

  With a push of a button, she opened her station's communication line to transmit a response directly to the incoming fighter.

  “Attention unknown fighter. Please identify yourself and provide us with your destination.”

  There was no immediate response. The communication line was silent. Heather was not overly surprised. If his automated message was still broadcasting, it would take a moment for a pilot to switch it off.

  However, after a few more seconds of not receiving a response, Heather repeated the message with more force. “Attention unknown fighter. Identify yourself immediately or we will be forced to engage you.”

  And with that, Heather keyed in a request that the Liburnian ships target the fighter, but avoided asking the Squalus’ to do the same. The subsurface Liburnian ships used the N.E.D.A. planetary sensor grid to track and target enemies with their various self-propelled weapons, all of which could be deployed below the surface and hit orbiting targets. They also each had a single, surface usable energy beam weapon identical to the fixed ground based weapons located around the continent, which was designed to target and destroy ships in the upper atmosphere.