Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  “Lifting,” responded the right side redhead.

  “Hits on our nose,” called the left side redhead as Rosemary tapped her Tactical control pillar. “Shall I spin the ship?”

  “Yes,” Jacob said. “But stop the spin when I order our right side proton laser to join in firing on one of the wasp ships. Can’t disrupt Quincy’s targeting aim.”

  “Spinning.”

  The ship cross-section holo showed a second hit from seven ship beams. The front ring of each ship fired two green lasers and two yellow lightning bolts at the Lepanto, making for fourteen hits on the nose and now the front belly of his ship. The belly railgun died in that fire. At least his two topside railgun launchers were operational. He planned to add multiple volleys of Seek-And-Kill Smart Rocks to the proton laser fire. Briefly he realized he should have loaded nuke warheads on some of the Smart Rocks, in the hope a few nukes would get through and blow holes in the log-like ships. Well, beams were faster and just as deadly.

  “Range is now 9,937 klicks,” called Rosemary.

  Finally.

  “Tactical! Stop the spinning. Aim our proton mount at wasp ship W5. Fire!”

  “Firing,” called the woman whose milky-white skin could not take a tan.

  In the true space holo that filled the middle of the wallscreen, the wasp ship closest to his scissor blade became the target of six red proton beams as the StarFight cruisers and destroyers joined his fire. The Midway was leading the counter-attack on a wasp ship close to it.

  The nose of W5 became red, then yellow, then white.

  A vast explosion filled the front of the wasp ship, spreading rearward as the six red beams changed angle to run along the top spine of the wasp ship. Before those beams reached the rear weapons ring, it happened.

  A white-yellow star glowed in carbon black space.

  “Bandit splashed!” called Rosemary. “Launching first load of Smart Rocks.”

  A vibration touched his boots as the railgun launchers on the Lepanto’s topside shot out a hundred beach balls loaded with plastique and maneuvering jets. A second vibration said his tail railgun had joined in the attack.

  “Targeting W1 now,” called Rosemary.

  A second white-yellow star flared on his father’s side of the approaching wasp formation. The combined eight proton beams from his blade of the formation had cut through the middle of his target, breaking it open. Silver water globules and white air filled the middle between the two ship halves. But they disappeared as the ship’s fusion reactor lost containment and created a decent fusion bomb that blew apart the two halves.

  A third star flared where W1 had been.

  “Second bandit splashed by StarFight,” Rosemary said, sounding even more excited.

  “Punch through on our belly!” yelled Joaquin at Life Support. “Water shell is venting. Control valves closing. Inner hull still intact.”

  That punch through from combined enemy beams had happened between the old belly punch through and the front nose of his ship. Both belly railgun launchers were long gone. Jacob bit his lip as Rosemary initiated a third volley of proton laser fire, this time targeting another wasp ship.

  The situational holo counter now changed. It had shown the two wasp groups down to five ships on Jacob’s side and seven on his father’s side, with their two rows of green dots nearing the front of the enemy formation of two purple dot clusters. That now changed. A green dot vanished.

  A new star filled this part of the cosmos.

  “St. Mihiel’s gone,” called Oliver.

  Jacob felt his gut tighten. He would miss the good humor of Dekker Lorenz and the 71 men and women aboard the frigate. Dekker had been firing his nose laser against W1, adding to that ship’s disintegration. Now his ship fragments joined the icy coldness of black space.

  “But the Midway’s group got another wasp! Now a second!” cried Cassandra from Gravity.

  Jacob saw two new stars take form on his father’s side of the formation.

  Tiny yellow lights now lit up among the leading wasp ships as the volleys of Smart Rocks fired by the Midway, the Lepanto and the cruisers managed to hit wasp ship hulls, blowing up sensor arrays and weapons tubes. Hundreds had been fired. A few dozen made it through the laser counterfire of the wasp ships.

  Two bigger stars now filled his father’s side of the wasp formation.

  They looked like three megaton thermonuke blasts. But that couldn’t be. Yet they had happened at the positions of two wasp ships. Which now disappeared from the situational counter.

  “Admiral?” Jacob called.

  His father looked at Jacob from his Bridge. A grin filled his face. “Told you I had a few surprises up my sleeve! We used the transit time inward and back to Valhalla to retrofit some Smart Rocks with magfield coils. Then we squirted antimatter into them. They were mixed among the plastique loaded rocks. Two of them got through!”

  “Amazing,” he murmured, giving his father a thumbs-up. “Well done, admiral.”

  The situational counter now showed three purple dots on his father’s side, which included the giant wasp ship. Five purple dots were on Jacob’s side. Wrong. Now four.

  “Splashed another bandit!” yelled Rosemary. “That was W3. We’re combining proton beams against W7.”

  The white-yellow star of the dead wasp ship slowly became rings within rings of orange, then red plasma shells as vaporized parts of the wasp ship added to the star that had once been filled with living wasps.

  Jacob saw his scissor blade was about to move past the four wasp ships remaining on his side. That included the damaged giant wasp ship that had been led by Hunter One. It was also the ship that had sent down a shuttle loaded with a lightning bomb that had killed Admiral Johanson, Captain Miglotti and XO Anderson. Time to go after it.

  “StarFight formation! Reverse course! Let’s run up the tails of these bastards!”

  Even as he heard cheers from the other six ship captains, a new star took form. It had been a green dot.

  “The Inchon is gone,” called Rosemary, her voice suddenly soft.

  Jacob watched the situational holo as Louise turned the Lepanto’s nose into a seventy degree turn that would allow the Battlestar to lead the new attack formation. One part of his mind said the cruisers, destroyers and surviving frigate Aldertag would come about and follow his lead. Another part of his mind said Earth had traded a frigate and a destroyer to take out eight wasp ships. It was now sixteen green dots versus seven purple dots. He did not like the four-to-one tradeoff. The seven wasp survivors included the two giant ships. Which were combining their beams against the Chesapeake and the Hampton Roads. Water globules from Chesapeake’s right side said it had a punch through. Hampton wobbled in its course, then resumed its curve-around vector track.

  “Navigation, put us in the path of the beams hitting our cruisers.”

  “Maneuvering.”

  The topside of the Battlestar became nearly sun hot as green lasers and yellow lightning bolts filled the space where his spine proton laser mount and topside plasma battery had been.

  Two yellow-white stars filled the void.

  “The Midway got one. The StarFight ships got a second. Both on our side,” called Rosemary, sounding very somber.

  One part of Jacob’s mind said it was down to five wasp ships against sixteen human ships. Two wasps on his side and three on his father’s side.

  “Punch through into Weapons Deck,” called Joaquin. “It’s through the inner hull. Hallway hatches closing. We lost some people in the hallway section opened to space.”

  “Nav, lift us up ten degrees. Our belly proton mount can still fire,” Jacob said, hoping his crewmates listening over the All Ship vidcast would understand he cared about the crew who had died in the topside Weapons hallway. Just as he cared about those who had died when the St. Mihiel and the Inchon had become sun-hot vapor.

  A new star showed. A green dot vanished.

  “The Red Sea is gone,” Rosemary said so softly he wonde
red if she even meant to speak.

  Fifteen versus five. Time to do something radical.

  “Engines! Move us up to eleven psol! Now!” Jacob looked further left. “Power, increase reactor output by ten percent. Do it!”

  “Power output increasing,” responded Maggie, her voice firm.

  “All thrusters firing beyond rating,” called Akira. “I’ve increased power flow to the fusion pellet containment fields.”

  They had done this once before, during the first wasp attack in Kepler 22. Jacob knew his ship could take it. The Lepanto would outpace the following StarFight ships, which even now were combining their fire against the single wasp ship that followed behind the giant ship that had lost its front nose section. But it allowed his Battlestar to close on the fleeing giant ship, which was making just ten psol.

  “Tactical, connect me with Chief Linkletter,” he said.

  “Linking,” called Rosemary, her tone now eager as she realized his intent.

  “Chief Petty Officer Linkletter reporting,” came the voice of the young man whom he now knew much better than two months ago. “Captain, you have orders for me?”

  “I do. Target wasp ship W8. It’s the giant one. Advise me when it enters the impact zone of the cannon’s beam.”

  Seconds passed.

  “Range is 4,011 kilometers and closing,” called Rosemary.

  “Target W8 is within reach!” called Linkletter.

  At last. “Fire antimatter cannon!”

  In the true space holo that filled the middle of the wallscreen, a black beam of magnetically confined negative antimatter shot out from the Lepanto and impacted on the stern of the giant wasp ship. It was target W8 on the situational holo.

  The ship’s three fusion thrusters blew apart as a small white-yellow sun glowed where once matter had been. That glow grew larger and larger, moving forward.

  “Damn!” grunted Richard.

  “Got ‘em,” said Daisy.

  Below, Alicia looked up, her expression very sober. “You’ve put paid to the killers of Admiral Johanson, Miglotti and Anderson.”

  “We all put paid to that debt,” Jacob said.

  He watched as a large sun replaced the matter and living bodies of the wasp ship that had led the unprovoked attack on his ship and his StarFight fellows.

  A second smaller sun now showed just beyond the spot where the giant wasp ship had once been.

  His father’s eight ships had come about in their reverse scissor blade formation and had run up on the rear of the remaining wasp ships. They had just killed W12, the last ship on Jacob’s side. Which left the giant ship led by Hunter Prime and two more wasp ships.

  Fifteen green dots versus three purple dots. Eight ships in the Midway formation and seven in his StarFight formation. They had paid in blood for the death of most of the invading wasp fleet. He saw his father’s Midway leading the beam fight against the two smaller wasp ships. They had moved to trail behind the rear of the remaining giant wasp ship. Why the move back?

  “Captain!” yelled Lori from behind. “Look! The giant wasp ship is putting out new hull plates. It’s going black hole!”

  Damn. “All StarFight ships, stay back! Giant ship is going to black hole mode!”

  “Midway fleet, do the same,” called his father. “Tactical, concentrate our lasers on the ass of that wasp on the right. Maybe we can blow its two thrusters!”

  Jacob liked that. “Tactical, aim our front lasers at the other wasp ship. All StarFight ships, join your lasers with those of the Lepanto.”

  “Joining with Lepanto,” came the responses from the captains of the Chesapeake, Hampton Roads, Tsushima Strait, Salamis, Philippine Sea and the Aldertag.

  “Joining,” came from his father’s battle group.

  The ships Okinawa, Mobile Bay, Manila Bay, Monitor, Leyte Gulf, Schweinfurt and Malacca Strait joined their laser fire with that of the Midway.

  The hulls of the two wasp ships glowed from the touch of green laser beams.

  The giant wasp ship disappeared.

  It had gone into black hole mode, leaving behind only an invisible event horizon and a power great enough to reach out nearly 4,000 kilometers in any direction. Actually, the other part of Jacob’s mind corrected, its reach was 3,917 klicks.

  “Look!” yelled Lori. “Those wasp ships are caught in the field!”

  Jacob watched along with everyone on the fifteen surviving ships as the two wasp ships now paid for moving close to the giant ship’s stern in an effort to protect that ship. Had the Hunter Prime ordered them to do that, even as he planned to activate his black hole field? Had he known it would kill the other wasp ships? Whatever his plan, his ship was now invulnerable to incoming beams. Which had become streaks of green and red laser light that circled the middle of an invisible globe. That globe began moving away, pulling the two wasp ships closer and closer.

  Gray hulls fragmented into hundreds of plates and pipes and blocks as gravitational tides pulled the once-living ships into long streams of gray taffy surrounded by white clouds of air that had once been breathed.

  “Damn,” called Rosemary. “We didn’t need to shoot at those two bastards. Their own boss killed them.”

  Jacob could only agree. Well before the incoming laser and proton beams could kill the last two smaller wasp ships, they had been pulled out of targeting lock-on and closer to the giant ship that was now a swirl of green and red light that flared every time a metal fragment hit the event horizon and was consumed by the beam energies fired by their fifteen ships.

  “Well, that puts paid to most of them,” said his father from the Midway, sounding satisfied.

  True. But there was no way the giant ship could stay in black hole mode forever. It had—

  “Captain,” called Louise from Navigation. “That black hole ship is increasing its speed. It’s up to eleven psol. Moving higher. Now at twelve psol. It’s at thirteen psol and—”

  “What’s the vector track of that ship!” Jacob yelled, his belly clenching as new fears filled his heart.

  “Toward Valhalla,” Louise said, choking on her answer.

  He looked to his father. “Fleet admiral, we cannot let that bastard get to Valhalla! All he has to do is to drop his field and launch his nuke warheads. We couldn’t kill them all. The Lepanto can catch that bastard!”

  “How?”

  His father’s expression had gone from satisfaction to frustration.

  “By going up to fourteen percent of lightspeed. Our reactors can provide the power. Our thrusters can handle the strain.”

  His father looked torn. “I remember that part of the first combat video. That was how you pulled the Lepanto out of that other ship’s black hole field. But son, it’s a long trip to get to Valhalla. An AU at least. You can’t keep that speed up for an hour.”

  He was probably right. “We’ll hold it to thirteen point two psol,” Jacob said. “We’ll overtake that Hunter Prime bastard!”

  Decision filled his father’s face. “Do it. And send us your power and thruster settings. Two of us going after that bastard doubles the chances that one of us will overtake him before our engines melt. Or worse.”

  Jacob knew what worse meant. “Engines, Power, send your settings to the Midway. Take us to thirteen point two psol. Now.”

  “Sir!” Maggie cried. “That will put the reactors at 12 percent beyond their maximum safe rating! We’re now at five over.”

  “So it will. Do it.” He remembered what he had to do to increase power flow to the thrusters. “Gravity,” he called to Cassandra. “Cut power to all gravity plates not involved in the operation of the fusion reactors, fuel feed and thruster operation. Warn all decks, but cut power. That will reduce the draw on the fusion reactors and increase power flow to the thrusters.”

  “All decks,” the green-haired woman called over the shipwide comlink. “Null gravity coming.” She reached out and tapped her control pillar. “All gravity plates shut down. Sir.”

  He looked
ahead to Akira. “Engines, increase thruster output as much as you can with the increased fuel flow and power feed.”

  The young Black woman nodded, her tight curls floating out from her head as the Bridge gravity plates shut down. “Increasing thruster power. Moving up to 12.3, 12.7 . . . 13.2 percent of lightspeed!”

  On his wallscreen the image of the Midway’s Bridge showed his father doing the same with his Power, Engines and Gravity people. A tablet floated up from the armrest of the Sioux captain, who reached out faster than quick and grabbed it.

  “Fleet admiral, the Midway is hauling ass!” called the man.

  Jacob almost smiled at the sudden looseness of his father’s captain. Marjorie Jones his XO did smile briefly. Then sobered. His father and his staff understood the risk they were taking in pushing their Battlestar well beyond its thruster and reactor ratings. This was the first time for them. It was the second time for him, Daisy and everyone else on the Bridge.

  “Navigation, show me a projected interception point for our arrival within weapons range of the black hole ship.”

  Louise tapped on her control pillar.

  The wallscreen already held two images. The sensor holo filled the left side of the screen, while the true space holo filled the right side. Its middle now showed the green dots of their disjointed Scissors formation. Thirteen green dots moved at ten psol, falling behind. Two green dots now chased after a single purple dot.

  “Projected.”

  The middle holo enlarged until it included the planet Valhalla and its moon on the far right side, with the ships on the far left. A dotted green line chased after a purple dot. Intersection showed at a million klicks out from Valhalla.

  “All Ship, we are in pursuit of the surviving enemy ship,” Jacob announced. “I aim to kill it before it hurts Valhalla. Take your Awake pills and stay on your stations. This battle is not yet done.”

  He sat back and tried not to feel impatient.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  An hour later Daisy watched the readings from the ship’s three fusion reactors and three fusion pulse thrusters. The internal magfields of the reactors were holding their tiny fusion blasts and bleeding off electrical power to the ship’s essential functions. Which were air, lights, control circuits, the shipwide wifi field, sensors, the Mess Hall freezers, the Med Hall equipment and the weapons mounts and nodes. The shutdown of nearly every gravity plate in the Lepanto had allowed enough power to flow to the thrusters so Akira and the fusion engineers on Engines Deck had been able to increase the strength of the fusion magfields that fed each thruster with implosion byproducts. Raw energy spat out the rear of her ship’s three exhaust funnels, seeking escape from the magfields of those funnels. Once free of the funnels, the streams of orange-white plasma joined together in a single flare that reached out eighty kilometers to her ship’s stern. Secondary reradiation from molecules of interstellar gas reached beyond the flare itself. She wished that flare could be turned loose on the black hole wasp ship. But its river of electrons, protons, neutrons and subatomic particles would be bent sideways and join the field’s accretion disk, the same way the earlier barrage of beams from both Earth fleets had been shifted. Her holo’s true space image of the distant enemy ship showed a glowing white, green and red ball with periodic flares of yellow light as interstellar gas impacted the field. Only the Lepanto’s charged electromagnetic field kept her ship from being badly buffeted by the sparse gas that lay between the planets of any star.