Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  “Just blew the two mag mines by the entry hole!” called Howard over the comlink. “Chief, I figured we could let the wasps suck on some vacuum after we pull out!”

  Richard grinned to himself. Howard was the kind of Mississippian who believed in adding extra thumpings to any man who crossed his path. Or any wasp, in this case. Course the alien ship had to have tubeway hatches that closed on pressure loss, just like every Earth ship. But surely the loss of pressure at two spots on the enemy ship, plus the loss of dozens of fighters, was going to make this wasp ship spend the next few weeks licking its wounds as it worked to recover normal functioning.

  “Just right!” he called. Richard stepped through the inner airlock hatch and saw how crowded the cargohold interior was. He could barely see the hard shell form of Howard, up front at the wall panels that let him control the retro rockets that would push them out and away from the wasp ship. He noticed how Auggie was standing in the narrow aisle between the seats that locked each hard shell into position before a Dart impacted the ship it was boarding. Well, lock-in was not needed on this departure. And the Dart’s inertial damper field would protect his Marines from being knocked over by the retros and main thruster. “Get us the hell out of here! And fire our laser at that the bastard’s rear weapons ring as we pull out! Wayne, you do the same! I’m sure Jefferson will give us covering fire as we exit.”

  “Our lasers are covering you!” called the sharp soprano of the woman who commanded the destroyer that had brought them this far. “Move to hide behind the ice comet! It will give you some shelter from the wasp lasers! We’ll keep its attention on us until we can rendezvous with your Darts.”

  Richard knew the lanky woman who loved a fight would do just what she promised. Escaping from an armed enemy was never easy. But at least two of the three weapons rings were dead. And maybe the departure of the two surviving Darts would cause enough air loss to distract the wasp ship’s commander from trying to kill his Darts. He hoped so. At least the long plasma flame from their single fusion pulse thruster would disperse any bolt and laser beams hitting at that end of each Dart.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Daisy felt relief as the wallscreen images showed the two Darts firing their thrusters to put them behind the nearby giant comet. The wasp ship’s tail ring of lasers and lightning tubes fired a few beams at the fleeing Marines, but the two green beams that came close to the two Darts were dispersed by the yellow-white plasma flare of their thruster exhausts. Even lightning bolts could not stay coherent in the midst of the plasma from a fusion pulse thruster. That fact was also protecting Lieutenant Jefferson’s destroyer as it swung wide to one side, out of range of the wasp weapons, then dived for the comet, its two thrusters putting a stream of plasma between it and the outgoing wasp ship. The enemy ship did not make any attempt to follow the Philippine Sea or the fleeing Darts. The wallscreen image of the wasp ship, conveyed by a spysat launched earlier by Jefferson, showed two holes in the ship’s six-sided hull, and a massive gash near its rear. That was where Dart Three had self-destructed. While the light from the local star was pale this far out, sensors on the spysat showed the gaping hole went down several deck levels. The wasp ship still had power in one thruster, but clearly it was in bad shape after this encounter with the Darts and the Sea.

  “Captain,” Aaron called from the right of her seat. “Chief O’Connor has texted me that his and First Sergeant Naranjo’s people are all well. First Sergeant Park has pulled his Marines out of their dead hard shells. And Chief O’Connor reports only Corporal Harrison was injured. His left hand has an electrical burn.”

  Her right side holo that carried the ceiling’s look down image of Jacob, Aaron, herself and the nine Bridge crew showed Jacob’s face. His tense expression, which she had been aware of during the entire Dart boarding and interior combat on the wasp ship, now eased to a neutral look. His wide shoulders lowered.

  “Very good news,” Jacob said, sounding more calm than Daisy felt. He looked ahead. “Chief Osashi, any word from Lieutenant Jefferson?”

  The fiftyish Japanese-American shook his head as he kept his attention focused on several holos in front of his control pillar. “Nothing yet. Just the neutrino vid and com feed from the Marines.”

  “XO, I suspect Chief O’Connor will want to take care of gathering up Master Sergeant Lee’s personal effects,” Jacob said. “Will you provide him with the Earth side location of Lee’s parents?”

  Daisy took a deep breath. Chao Lee was one of the four Marine pilots who had welcomed her into the Marine community not long after she boarded the Lepanto. The tall, slim man had enjoyed playing Go with her and Lori, when she and her friend had visited the Marine common room on the Habitation Deck. His death felt . . . unreal. Yet others had already died, both at Kepler 22 and here at Kepler 10. The full crews of the Britain and the Marianas had become vapor with their ships. And crew people from the Tsushima Strait, the St. Mihiel and the Chesapeake had died in ship to ship combat. They were lucky no one on the Lepanto had died during the three deep hull punch throughs by enemy beams. Time to put memories away.

  “Captain, yes, I will provide Chief O’Connor and First Sergeant Naranjo with that information.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jacob said quickly. “Lee was under the command of Sergeant Naranjo, so he needs that data too. Thank you for the reminder.”

  She wondered why Jacob was being so talkative. Was it a side effect of the stress he felt at watching others fight life and death battles against giant yellow wasps? “You’re welcome.”

  “Incoming neutrino video signal,” called the voice of Melody from the ceiling speaker. “Sender is Lieutenant Joy Jefferson of the Philippine Sea. Do you wish to accept the signal?”

  “Yes, dammit!” called Jacob, his irritated tone surprising Daisy. “Put her signal up on the wallscreen. Share it over the All Ship vidcom. And return the wallscreen to imagery of the Sea, the wasp ship and sensor imagery of this system.”

  “As you wish, my dear captain,” Melody said in a lilting, musical voice.

  Daisy could not believe the words spoken by the AI. It had been acting strange ever since the loss of the Lepanto’s admiral, captain and XO. Now, it had moved from being argumentative to being . . . personal. Ahead of her the front wallscreen changed imagery. On the right was the true space image of the Sea, as viewed from its spysat. On the left was a situational display of all planets, ships and orbital structures in the Kepler 10 system. In the middle was the image of Joy Jefferson and her XO Aelwen Rhydderch. Richard sat next to Joy, looking tired. The woman’s blue eyes fixed on her, Aaron and Jacob.

  “Captain, I report a cessation of hostile fire between my ship and the wasp ship. Two of the three Darts used in our boarding have returned and are locked down to my hull.” She bit her lip. “As you’ve heard, we lost Dart Three and pilot Chao Lee. All other Marines have returned safely.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Jacob said more calmly. He sighed. “Guess some battle loss was to be expected. I gather the Marines brought in captives and tech?”

  Joy nodded quickly. “They did. I’ve put the four wasps in a holding room set to half gee gravity, with bowls of water and tubes of honey set out for them. They should recover from the taser zaps within an hour. Maybe they will like the honey.”

  Daisy admired Joy. The straw blond had taken her ship right into the teeth of the wasp ship’s energy beams, defeated two of its three weapons rings and had recovered the surviving Darts. And nearly all of the Marines who had boarded. They now had gigabytes of video imagery from the Marine shoulder vidcams that would be intensely examined by Lieutenant Branstead’s xenologists, as would the captured tech. Surely some of the tech were pheromone signalers that could be reverse engineered. Plus they had living captives who could be shown future cartoon videos, and watched as they pheromone spoke to each other. If Science Deck could figure out how to make a pheromone signaler that converted human speech into wasp pheromones, maybe they could avoid the next battle. M
aybe they could convince the wasps it was all an accident and that humanity would leave Kepler 22 and the wasp colony planet alone. No doubt Lori would be in the thick of the wasp research, leaving her and Jacob to hang with Carlos, Kenji and Quincy. Or maybe just Kenji and Quincy since Carlos and Lori were a devoted couple.

  “Maybe they will,” Jacob said after a long pause. “Lieutenant, bring your ship and our Marines back to Valhalla. You, your crew and the Marines deserve some shore leave!”

  Joy smiled quickly, then grew thoughtful. “My Weapons chief had excellent results from her close-up targeting of the enemy’s weapons rings. While half our adaptive optics are gone due to lightning bolt hits, our hull withstood concentrated laser fire. Shall I transmit my chief’s targeting solutions and our hull data to your people now? Or save it for when we arrive at Valhalla?”

  “Send it now,” Jacob said quickly. “Address it to Chief Diego y Silva at Weapons and to Chief Garcia at Life Support here on the Bridge. Also send it to Chief Bannister at Weapons Deck and Lieutenant Yamamoto at Life Support Deck. We have no idea when the new wasp fleet will show up, so I want our ships and our deck chiefs to know everything from your encounter.” Jacob paused, rubbed his chin, then sat back, laying his arms on his armrests. “Did you get any sense of what that wasp ship was doing way out in the Kuiper Belt?”

  Joy looked left to her Welsh helper. “XO, you tracked the early sensor and electro-optical scans of the comet and how the enemy ship’s hideout appeared before it launched on us. What say?”

  The intense woman looked to her left at a holo, then faced Daisy, Aaron and Jacob. “Our sensor scans showed tech sensors atop the hidey hole they cut into the comet’s ice. Only one item was active, a standard lidar for tracking nearby objects. The rest were passive tech.” She paused, her expression turning thoughtful. “My guess is they were monitoring neutrino emissions from us and from Valhalla, and watching the planet with their version of a scope. Being similar to wasps, my guess is they were watching the ultraviolet, blue, white, cyan and green parts of the spectrum. They would know their attack on Valhalla failed to kill large numbers of people.”

  She saw Jacob turning thoughtful. “Could the wasps also have been monitoring planet three? Its gravity is just half a gee, and it lies in this system’s liquid water ecozone.”

  “That is likely,” Aelwen said quickly, her rust-red eyebrows rising. “Planet three is a near copy of the planet they colonized in Kepler 22.”

  “Which makes it one reason the wasps will return,” Jacob mused. “Jefferson, keep watch on those wasps after they awaken. I’ll have Lieutenant Branstead send you a cartoon video that will show your ship heading inward to Valhalla, with the wasps living in a park-like space. That should reduce their confusion. And maybe we can put them in the Lepanto’s Forest Room at half gee gravity.”

  “They would like that,” Aelwen said, looking to her captain.

  Joy folded hands over her woodland camo uniform. “Captain of the fleet, may I tend to my people? Most shifts are overdue for sleep or a meal.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Please inform your crew that I intend to recommend them and your ship for a unit citation, once the Earth relief ships get here. What you did was beyond dangerous. I consider the Philippine Sea to be one of my most valuable assets.”

  Joy smiled briefly. “Captain, thank you. Ending signal.”

  Her image vanished from the wallscreen. Which adjusted to show the surface of the planet Valhalla in the middle of the screen, with the left and right sides continuing to show the images from 43 AU out.

  “XO.”

  She turned and looked up to Jacob. His smooth-shaven face had no wrinkles on it. But his gray eyes looked tired. “Yes, Captain?”

  “Call up Lieutenant Branstead to the Bridge. She and I need to confer on these captives and on the incoming wasp tech. Plus the cartoon video is a top priority for the moment. I want those captives to survive!”

  Daisy nodded. “As you order, Captain.” She looked down to her right armrest. She tapped a comlink patch. “Lieutenant Branstead, report to the Bridge.”

  “Coming,” the woman said quickly, her tone eager.

  No doubt the Science Deck chief had been watching the All Ship video of the wasp ship boarding and Joy’s report. The Australian woman had been a good boss to Lori, and a vital help on the Bridge during the last battle with the wasp fleet. Daisy hoped Alicia could do a fast turnaround on the cartoon video. When the tasered wasps awakened, they would be confused, angry and locked into a fairly small space on the Sea. For people used to open sky flight, the movement limitation would be a severe strain. They needed to know her people would not torture them, kill them or mistreat them. The video cartoon would convey that. But how much would the four wasp captives be willing to share back to Alicia and her people?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Aarhant looked away from the All Ship video of the conversation between the Jefferson woman and the Renselaer whelp. Disgust filled him as he sat in the stuffed chair in his quarters. Once again the pretender had survived a potential disaster. If he had been in charge of the Lepanto and the fleet, he would have sent three ships to fight the lone wasp ship. Sending a single destroyer had been incredibly chancy. The fact the Marine boarding parties had mostly survived was not due to the whelp’s judgment. While Jefferson was a capable ship commander, still she was just a lieutenant, one of several lieutenants in the fleet who had stepped forward upon the death of the fleet’s senior officers. He was a lieutenant commander, the highest ranked officer on the Lepanto. He should be commanding the Battlestar, the same way Swanson was commanding the Chesapeake and Mehta was running the Salamis. The only ship commander with a higher rank than him and the other two lieutenant commanders was Captain Sunderland of the Aldertag. He sighed, grabbed the bottle of tequila from his side table and took a swig. The burning heat of the liquid filled his throat.

  Well, when the new Earth fleet arrived, it would be led by an admiral of some sort. Either a rear admiral or a vice admiral. Captains did not command fleets. They commanded single ships. While Renselaer had been given a field promotion to captain by the Star Navy base captain, still, the new fleet’s admiral would surely take control of the StarFight fleet. Perhaps he would demote the whelp to run a deck on the Lepanto? That would please Aarhant. While that was a long shot, he had spent 23 years in the Star Navy, earning his way to command of the Battlestar’s Navigation Deck. It was a very senior position. He had turned down command of a frigate in order to serve on the Lepanto. In his mind, the senior officers of Earth Command flashed through his memory. Some of them owed him favors. And his parents served with those senior officers. Surely, when the new admiral arrived, that man would know of Aarhant’s long history of service in the Star Navy.

  He put down the bottle, folded hands in his lap, and mentally began preparing his neutrino appeal to the admiral in charge of the new fleet. That man, surely it would be a man, would have decades of service in the Star Navy. Surely he would respect the same years of service that Aarhant had given. All he had to do to ensure the whelp’s downfall was to prepare a convincing summary of the youth’s misjudgments in the disastrous First Contact. As the former personal ensign to Rear Admiral Johanson, perhaps Renselaer would be seen as carrying some of the fault in the admiral’s decision to call down all the senior command officers of the fleet ships. That had been against all tradition and normal chain of command practice. He licked his lips. Well, he had weeks before the new fleet arrived. And when the Lepanto moved to the orbital base to undergo repairs, he would do all he could to get O’Sullivan onto his side. He just had to bide his time. A task he had learned well in the long years after his graduation from the Stellar Academy.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Five days after the raid, Jacob scanned the table in the admiral’s conference room. To his left sat Alicia Branstead. The stocky woman wore an NWU Type III woodland camo uniform of cap, shirt and pants. Everyone at the table wore the same camo uniform. Inclu
ding Richard, who sat beyond Alicia. Beyond him sat Joy Jefferson. The seats on that side of the long table were empty beyond Joy. To Jacob’s right sat Daisy, exobiologist Lori Antonova, programmer Carlos Mendoza and gunner’s mate Quincy Blackbourne. His brain trust, excepting Kenji Watanabe who was off shift and sleeping. Jacob had not wanted to bother his fellow chess player. Anyway, this meeting would focus on the wasp captives, the salvaged tech and the wasp reaction to Alicia’s earlier cartoon video.

  He gestured at the trays in the middle of the table. “Grab your poison of choice. This talk is informal. Leave rank behind. I need insights from each of you.” Jacob fixed on the woman in charge of their Science Deck. “Alicia, how did the wasps react to your video? And what is their condition now that they are in our Forest Room?”

  The woman’s high-cheeked face turned pensive. Her amber eyes looked his way. “Captain, uh Jacob, all four are still alive and eating some of the food we set out for them. Solid meat like steaks and pork chops they pass on. Small fruits, peas, honey and protein drinks they like. Raw eggs they like a lot, though they will eat hard-boiled eggs. One of my geeks released a dozen white mice in the Forest Room. Every wasp took out after a mouse, munching it down with those mandibles in their head. Clearly they like small live food. Probably small insects too, but I’m not about to let them munch on our butterflies, dragonflies and bees that we rely on to keep the flowering plants healthy. It was not easy moving the insects out of the Forest Room. I put them in the Park Room, down the hallway.”