The Pike Chronicles - Books 1 - 10

by Hudson, G. P.

“Reading twenty, no, twenty-five ships dead ahead.”

  “Have they spotted us?” said Jon.

  “It doesn’t appear so, Sir.”

  Major Karlin Vogel looked anxiously from the viewscreen to Jon. “We are outnumbered eight to one, Admiral,” said Vogel.

  “Thank you, Major,” said Jon. “I’m aware of that.”

  “Look at how spread out they are,” said Kevin. “They don’t seem too worried about an attack.”

  “No, that’s probably why they haven’t noticed us. They’re not running any long range scans,” said Jon. “Are those supply ships trailing the fleet?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Petrovic. “There are three supply ships in total coming up the rear.”

  “Armaments?”

  “None, Sir.”

  “No armaments and no escorts,” said Kevin. “They really don’t feel threatened.”

  “Why would they?” said Jon. “They’re still deep in Meisser space. There are no threats here, and even if there were, who would be crazy enough to attack a twenty-five ship military convoy?”

  Kevin chuckled. “They’d expect to have ample warning of any approaching threat. Plenty of time to get into formation. Look at how much space they’ve left between ships.”

  “Yeah, they’re more worried about an accidental collision than they are of a surprise attack.”

  “They might not know about the jump system yet.”

  “If they did, they would only know about one ship. Even with a jump system, one ship wouldn’t seem like much of a threat.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Are those frigates just in front of the supply ships?” said Kevin.

  “Yes, Sir,” said Petrovic. “Reading five frigates in total. All lightly armed.”

  Jon opened a comm with the other two ships and Bast and Jonas appeared on his console again. “Gentlemen, I assume you’ve scanned the convoy.”

  “Yes,” said Bast.

  “They’re a bunch of fools,” said Jonas.

  “Yes, the universe seems to be full of them,” said Jon, glancing over at Vogel. “The Meisser rear flank is clearly vulnerable.” Bast and Jonas nodded in agreement. “The Freedom will jump in and dispatch fighters to disable the supply ships. Simultaneously, the Ronin and Reiver will jump in ahead of the supply ships and open fire on the frigates. Once the supply ships have all been disabled, the Freedom and her fighters will join in the attack on the frigates. I anticipate that we can destroy all five frigates before any of the heavier ships can join the battle. Any questions?”

  “No,” said Bast.

  “It is a reasonable plan,” said Jonas.

  “Good,” said Jon. “We’ll use this location as a jump rallying point. Good hunting.”

  Bast and Jonas disappeared from Jon’s console.

  Jon turned to Kevin. “Are the fighters ready to launch?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Kevin. “Pilots are in their cockpits and fighters are in launch tubes.”

  “Good. Launch fighters the second we have landed. I want those supply ships disabled, not destroyed.”

  “Understood,” said Kevin.

  This might even be fun, thought Jon. He felt the creature’s excitement at the impending battle. Much to his dismay, he realized that he shared that excitement. He craved combat. I’m becoming like you, he thought to himself, in reality speaking to his symbiont.

  The symbiont responded with a thought of its own. It didn’t exactly speak to Jon. It was more that Jon just knew its thoughts. Nonetheless, the message was clear. We are one, it said.

  Jon cringed. Jesus, he thought. Am I even human anymore?”

  No, said the symbiont.

  Jon’s skin crawled at the suggestion. He shook the feeling away, and focused on the task at hand.

  “Initiate jump,” ordered Jon.

  The Freedom landed a few kilometers above the second of the three supply ships. At the same time clusters of fighters raced out of the Freedom’s launch tubes, and sped toward the prone vessels. The fighters broke off into three formations, each one going after a different ship. Jon watched their progress on one screen, while monitoring the Ronin and Reiver on another. The two warships had landed successfully behind the trailing frigates and opened fire. The frigates were smaller and not as well armed as the Chaanisar heavy cruiser, or the Reiver destroyer. This, along with the surprise attack from behind, made for a very lopsided encounter. They were dealing with over twenty warships, otherwise it might have seemed unfair.

  The opening salvos from the Ronin and the Reiver crashed into the trailing, smaller warship unopposed. The two ships worked together, like wolves picking off the slow member of a herd, combining their fire against one of the frigates. Blue bolts of energy ripped into the frigate from both sides, pulverizing the hull as missiles followed. The Meisser Corporation frigate had not expected the attack, and couldn’t mount a defense. The missiles detonated against its hull, resulting in it cracking open like a walnut.

  Jon cringed as he thought of the loss of life on board the frigate. Such a waste, and entirely unnecessary.

  Your hands are clean, suggested the symbiont. Their blood is on the hands of their masters.

  You’re right, thought Jon. But humans should not kill fellow humans.

  They always have, said the symbiont. They always will.

  Nice to see you haven’t lost your cheerful disposition, thought Jon.

  The Ronin and the Reiver moved away as the fractured frigate drifted lifelessly in the emptiness of space. The two warships were already firing on the second frigate, which managed to launch some countermeasures and return fire. It tried to come around and face its attackers, which proved difficult, even for the smaller, more maneuverable vessel. With the Ronin and Reiver on its flanks, the frigate had little room to maneuver.

  “The heavier warships are beginning to change course,” said Petrovic.

  “I expect word of our surprise attack has spread through the fleet,” said Jon.

  “They’re going to have a hell of a time trying to get into formation,” said Kevin.

  “What choice do they have?” said Jon. “If they come at us one by one they’ll be slaughtered.”

  “Supply ships have been disabled, Sir,” said Petrovic.

  “Fighters are breaking off their attack,” said Kevin. “They’re moving to help the Ronin and Reiver.”

  “Move the Freedom closer,” said Jon. “We’ll add her guns to the fight.” Jon was thinking of the fighters. If he needed to jump he would have to wait for the fighters to get back on board, or at the very least be close enough for the jump field to envelop them. The closer the fighters were to the Freedom, the quicker they could jump.

  As the fighters neared the action, violent explosions ripped through the second frigate. The smaller warship blew apart, reduced to tiny fragments of debris floating in space.”

  “Picking up incoming fighters,” said Petrovic.

  “They have a carrier?”

  “Yes, Sir. It is up at the front of the fleet.”

  So, we’re not the only ones with a carrier, thought Jon. “Tell our fighters to break off their attack on the frigates and engage the enemy fighters.”

  Chapter 30

  “Enemy fighters incoming,” said Peter Konos, the Freedom’s CAG. “Engage fighters. Repeat, engage fighters. Let the big guns deal with the frigates. I don’t want to see any of those bogeys get anywhere near our warships.”

  “No problem, Sir,” said James Mani, Konos’s wingman. “I don’t think these Meisser kids have ever had to face New Byzantium fighters before.”

  “Not that I recall,” said Konos.

  “Then they don’t know yet.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “That we’re the best!”

  Konos chuckled. He had fought together with Mani in several battles against the corporations, and was glad that Mani had volunteered with him to serve on the Freedom. “Alright, let’s focus people. Here they come.”

  The void h
ad turned into a celestial light show, as the heavy energy weapons from the Ronin and Reiver lanced out across the black sky at the enemy. The Meisser ships were aglow with orange halos as their point defense systems established protective fields around them. The frigates fired back, but lacked the firepower to inflict any real damage on the larger, heavily armored warships. Konos knew that was about to change. Not only were dozens of enemy fighters racing into the fray, but the Meisser cruisers and destroyers were maneuvering to come about and join the battle.

  As he closed the gap with the fighters he saw that they had now split into two groups, one heading for the Ronin, the other for the Reiver. “Squadrons one, two and three, we’ve got the Ronin. Four, five, and six, you protect the Reiver.”

  Konos and his group raced toward the attacking fighters, who up until now had not paid much attention to them. But as they drew closer, the enemy fighters altered course and came around to face them. Konos gripped his stick tighter as the HUD on his visor warned of an impending collision course. An enemy fighter flew straight for him, and his computer lined up their trajectories, projecting the imminent collision. Rather than changing vectors, Konos pulled the trigger and lit up the space in front of him with blue. He couldn’t see the enemy with his naked eye, the distances far too great for that, and at their combined speeds, they would crash into each other long before their eyes caught a glimpse of the other ship. It didn’t matter. At the last second the other pilot changed vectors. Konos smirked as he altered course as well, the first battle of nerves won.

  “Nice to see that sanity hasn’t clouded your judgment,” said Mani, his own fighter flying behind and above Konos’s, protecting him from any surprise attacks.

  “Sanity is overrated,” said Konos.

  “So it seems,” said Mani. “This is chaos.”

  Konos had to agree. When he swung his fighter around the sight took his breath away. Dogfights raged all around them. Hundreds of fighters swarming each other, their combined energy weapons painting the void blue. Konos’s HUD lit up with a cornucopia of targets. The sheer number made him dizzy. His HUD compensated, picking out the nearest option. He bore down on the enemy craft. It flew below him, and chased one of his team, trying to blow it out of the sky. Konos raced for the fighter, weapons blazing. His target broke off its own attack, turned and climbed. Konos stayed on his prey, matching maneuvers.

  “I’ve got him,” said Mani.

  Konos saw his wingman on his HUD. Mani had anticipated the enemy fighter’s reaction and had maintained his altitude to cut him off. Konos drove the unsuspecting craft higher as Mani swooped down and fired. A succession of energy bolts burned through the small enemy craft, detonating its core.

  “That’s how you do that!” said Mani.

  Konos laughed. “Well done,” he replied.

  An alarm in his HUD suddenly brought him back to reality. “Shit, I’m lit up,” said Konos. His HUD showed two enemy fighters on his tail, trying to get a lock. He broke into a sharp turn, denying his pursuer a kill shot for the moment. The two enemy fighters stayed close behind. He didn’t need his HUD to tell him they had fired. Blue energy bolts flashed around him as his fighter rolled, bobbed and weaved.

  “Hang tight, boss,” said Mani.

  Konos saw Mani on his HUD, flying straight for the attackers. The enemy saw him too, and the two fighters split up, each turning in an opposite direction, before Mani’s ship could collide with them.

  “And you think I’m crazy?” said Konos, turning back to one of his former attackers.

  “Sanity is overrated,” said Mani. “Victory goes to the side with the biggest balls.”

  “Is that so?” said Hansen, one of the female pilots.

  “I meant that in a figurative sense,” said Mani.

  “Good, because we all know there’s no way you’re capable of meaning it in a literal sense.”

  Laughter came in over the comm.

  “Stay focused everyone,” said Konos, as his HUD showed a targeting lock. He squeezed the trigger and watched as the enemy disappeared from his display.

  Chapter 31

  Colonel Bast knew that their advantage would soon come to an end. The frigates had been easy enough to deal with. None of the smaller ships were capable of standing up to his heavy cruiser, let alone when combined with the destroyer, and the carrier. But now the heavier warships were moving in for a counter-attack. To their credit, they didn’t just charge in, one by one, so they could be slaughtered. They held back until they could form up and attack as a group, even if that meant sacrificing the frigates, which were quickly dispatched. The New Byzantium fleet may have had the early advantage, but soon they would be outnumbered.

  The battle between the fighters still raged, but now that the frigates had been dealt with, the larger ships were able to lend their support, tilting the scales in their fighters’ favor. Due to Bast’s brain chip, and its recent integration, he could simultaneously see it all. He at once knew the status of each fighter, and each ship. The disposition of the enemy, and that of his crew. He knew precisely where the Ronin had taken fire, and how much damage had been sustained, as well as a repair estimate. The heavier Meisser ships were moving into a wedge formation. As they prepared to attack, he noted the enemy carrier hanging back, alone and vulnerable. Without uttering a word, he had his helmsman initiate a jump.

  The Ronin landed above and just behind the enemy carrier. With another thought, missiles were away, while energy weapons strafed the top of the huge ship. He was one with his crew. They knew his decisions the moment he did. Their reactions were seamless.

  The carrier had been caught completely off guard by the attack. With the Ronin landing so close, the carrier had little time to respond, and the Ronin missiles plowed into it unopposed. Bast saw each impact and the resulting breach. He saw the debris flushed into space. Saw the turrets opening fire, and jumped his ship before anything could touch it.

  The Ronin landed beneath the carrier next, instantaneously firing its missiles. The carrier was now better able to protect itself, and managed to deploy its point defense system. It made quick work of the Ronin’s missiles. Bast compensated, targeting the nearest point defense battery with energy weapons and railguns. The carrier hit back with its own guns. Its energy weapons pounded the Ronin. Bast forced his ship to stand its ground until the point defense battery had been destroyed, creating a hole in the carrier’s defenses. Bast willed another cluster of missiles to race out of the Ronin. The rockets flew straight through the hole in the carrier’s point defense shield and into its belly. He watched as they gutted the massive ship. Each missile concentrated on the same location. It took several impacts to damage the thick armor, but soon the missiles had created a large hull breach.

  Bast launched of a tiny drone, which sped unopposed through the gap in the point defense shield and into the gaping hole in the carrier’s hull. Once inside, the tiny craft raced past the fires, bypassed the repair crews, and sped along the corridors until it found a working computer console. It landed on the console and latched itself firmly in place. Through the drone, the AI accessed the console, and used it as a springboard to attack the ship’s systems. A massive denial of service attack followed, overwhelming the ship’s systems and disabling its digital defenses.

  In effect, the carrier was a massive interconnected computer network. Humans were simply incapable of manually controlling the behemoth of a warship. Every aspect of the ship relied on its computer systems. AI’s denial of service attack bombarded the carrier’s network with an innumerable amount of requests, to the point that it was simply incapable of responding to any request. With the network flooded, everything on the ship ceased to function, and the weapons systems went offline. The carrier’s point defense shield went down and its energy weapons ceased firing. The carrier simply floated in space. Defenseless.

  We don’t have much time, thought Bast.

  It won’t take much longer, said AI, through Bast’s brain chip. I’ve almost got
control.

  With the network overwhelmed, AI drilled deeper into the ship’s systems, bypassing the disabled defenses, and using brute force attacks to obtain security clearance where required. The carrier was simply no match for AI’s sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities, and she soon had control of the ship’s systems. Once in control, she rewrote the administrative privileges and locked out the carrier’s officers and crew.

  I have assumed control, said AI. Command personnel have been locked out and all communications disabled.

  Excellent, said Bast. Can you recall those fighters?

  Yes. Sending command.

  Bast watched as the fighters broke off their attacks and sped back toward the carrier. The Freedom’s fighters gave chase, shooting down a few, until finally letting the enemy fighters retreat. The heavier Meisser warships had finished getting into formation, and were now moving to engage the Freedom and the Reiver.

  Is the carrier still mobile? said Bast.

  Yes, Colonel. The carrier’s engines are still functional, said AI.

  Can you turn the carrier on its own warships?

  Yes, Colonel. Would you like me to attack now?

  Yes.

  Understood. Powering engines.

  The massive carrier lurched forward heading towards the enemy ships. They must have believed it was joining the fight. As it gained speed, the carrier bridged the gap between it and its retreating fighters. They followed orders and proceeded to land on their respective flight decks.

  Bast watched for a moment longer before jumping the Ronin back to its previous location alongside the Freedom and Reiver.

  Chapter 32

  As the Ronin jumped back from its engagement with the enemy carrier, Jon sent over the comm, “Nicely done.”

  “Thank you,” said Colonel Bast. “The Meisser armada will soon have quite the surprise.”

  “AI, how long until you are in firing range?” said Jon.

  “Thirty seconds,” said AI.

  Jon hailed Jonas, who soon appeared on his console, alongside Bast. Jonas had been kept up to date on the AI’s takeover of the enemy carrier, as had Jon. “When that carrier attacks, the Meisser ships are not going to know what hit them. That pretty little formation of theirs is going to fall apart. That’s when we strike. We jump in and add to the confusion. The Freedom will hit them on their right flank, the Ronin and Reiver on their left.”