Frontiers Saga 10: Liberation

by Ryk Brown

  “Four point eight two minutes, sir,” Mister Riley answered.

  Nathan tapped his comm-set to continue his conversation. “Position yourself about two to three light minutes out, and don’t stay in one position any longer than two minutes,” Nathan ordered. “Jump back if you detect any more departures, especially if they’re headed for the Jovian system. Do not engage any contacts.”

  “Understood, sir,” Loki answered.

  “Aurora Actual out.”

  “Propellant transfer rig has been disconnected,” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s station. “We’re free to maneuver.”

  “Thrusting up and away from Metis,” Mister Chiles reported from the Aurora’s helm.

  “New orbit, Mister Chiles,” Nathan said. “I want us higher than Metis with room to maneuver, but do your best not to get too far ahead of her. We’re their shield for now.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Nathan tapped his comm-set. “Flight ops, Captain.”

  “Captain, go for flight ops,” the controller answered.

  “Launch three pairs of Talons and have them loiter in geostationary orbit over Jupiter, high altitude. I want a pair over the equator on either side, and the last pair under the planet’s southern pole. I want full view and open contact all around the system. Passive only until contacts are made, then active. Weapons tight.”

  “Understood.”

  “Sir, won’t that confirm our presence to the Jung?”

  “I’m pretty sure they already know we’re here, Mister Randeen. The fact that they went to FTL over five minutes ago tells me they’re not going to come straight at us like before, and I want to be sure we see them coming.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nathan turned forward. The Celestia and the small moon she was resting on fell away from them and slid aft as the helmsman thrust the Aurora forward and began to climb to a higher orbit.

  “Talons have been launched,” Mister Randeen reported.

  “Comms, patch me through to Commander Taylor on the Celestia,” Nathan ordered.

  “One moment, sir.”

  Nathan watched the view screen as the sensor telemetry appeared in smaller windows along the bottom edge of the main view screen.

  “Channel is ready, Captain,” Naralena said.

  Nathan tapped his comm-set again. “Celestia Actual, Aurora Actual.”

  “Go for Celestia Actual,” Cameron answered.

  “I’m going to assume that the Jung know we’re here now and that stalling for time isn’t going to work as we’d hoped. How is your propellant level?”

  “We’ve got enough to lift off, maneuver around the Jovian system, and even break orbit if necessary.”

  “Do you have enough to make a run for deep space?”

  “We could if we go straight from liftoff to a departure burn, but we won’t be able get up to any respectable speed after breaking orbit. Besides, in order to depart while in the shadow of Jupiter, we’d have to wait another three hours at this point, and they’d still see us as we orbited around the Earth side of Jupiter during our burn.”

  Nathan sighed. “How is your laser comm-array?”

  “It works, but the tracking motors are slow. There’s no way we’ll be able to track you if you start jumping around. However, we can use the jump shuttle’s laser comm-array.”

  Nathan grimaced, realizing he should have already thought of a way to share real-time combat data between the two ships. “Good idea. I’ll have the Talons feed directly to you so you’re aware of the situation, as I suspect it’s going to become rather fluid. I’ll have them laser comm into your omnidirectional array. Then you can laser it out to us to keep us updated.”

  “And if you jump?”

  “If we jump local, we’ll send our destination coordinates to your jump shuttle via the laser comm link first. If we jump out of the area, we’ll get an update from you when we return.”

  “Understood,” Cameron answered.

  “Comms, make a note of this data configuration with the Celestia. I suspect we’ll be using it again in the future.”

  “Aye, sir,” Naralena answered.

  “Contact!” Mister Navashee announced from the sensor station. “Two light minutes out. Transferring track to tactical.”

  “Course?” Nathan wondered.

  “Jung cruiser,” Mister Randeen added from the tactical station. “Looks like they just came out of FTL. They’re on an intercept course. Putting it up on the screen.”

  Nathan turned toward the main view screen as the tactical plot of the Jung cruiser appeared. “Their intercept angle will give them a perfect shot at the Celestia,” Nathan realized. “Time to intercept?”

  “They’re doing quarter light, sir. Best guess to weapons range is six minutes.”

  “They must have FTL’d it to a lateral point, then turned before they FTL’d again,” Nathan said, “but why?”

  “Sir?” Mister Randeen asked.

  “They don’t need the angle,” Nathan explained. “That cruiser’s guns could crack Metis in half even from max range, taking the Celestia out with it.” Nathan turned and looked at Mister Randeen. “And why didn’t they come out of FTL already in weapons range? They could’ve gotten a kill shot off before we could react.”

  “A miscalculation in their FTL jump?” Mister Riley suggested from the navigation chair.

  “A six-minute miscalculation?” Nathan said. “Unlikely. No, they want to draw us away from Metis, away from the Celestia. They may mean to take her intact.” Nathan turned forward again. “Helm, turn us to an intercept course and prepare to jump. I want to be just above and ahead of the contact.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Commander,” Nathan said into his comm-set, “you should expect company at any moment. I don’t think they’d be trying to draw us out unless they had something in mind.”

  “Captain,” Cameron objected, “if they want to draw the Aurora away from Metis, shouldn’t you be doing the opposite… staying put?”

  “We don’t really have a choice,” Nathan answered over the comms. “We can’t just sit here and wait for them to get within range and open fire.”

  “Sir, at our current rate of closure, we’re going to whiz right past them when we come out of our jump,” Mister Riley warned.

  “Put us about a million kilometers ahead of them,” Nathan said. “That will give us about ten to twelve seconds to put a couple of nukes in their path. They won’t have time to maneuver or put up point-defenses.”

  “I’ll need to angle the bow downward just before we jump,” Mister Chiles said. “There won’t be enough time after we jump.”

  “Good idea,” Nathan agreed.

  “Sir, I recommend we jump as close as we can to their course and still have enough clearance to pass over them,” Mister Randeen suggested. “I can use a lower power thrust on the torpedoes, just enough to get them to intercept the cruiser at the right moment. I can angle the plasma cannons upward and get off a round to soften up their forward shields just before the nukes hit.”

  “You probably don’t want to be in the vicinity when those nukes detonate,” Cameron warned. “There may be significant debris coming off the target that could end up along your jump path.”

  “So we have twelve seconds to fire a pair of nukes, fire a pair of plasma shots, and jump out again,” Nathan said. “Piece of cake, right?”

  * * *

  “Jump complete,” Loki said as the Falcon’s jump flash subsided. “Starting passive scans.”

  “What’s our range this time?” Josh asked as he looked out at the stars.

  “Two light minutes. Why?”

  “No reason. What do you see?”

  “I only see the spaceport and four ships,�
� Loki answered.

  “What do you mean ‘only’?”

  “I mean I only see four ships. There should be seven Jung ships left in the system. We saw one jump away, so there should be six left. I only see four.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve got the battleship orbiting just beyond the spaceport, and a cruiser and two frigates leading and trailing on the same orbit.”

  “Maybe the missing ships are orbiting on the other side.”

  “Previously calculated ephemeris data indicates that none of the Jung ships could possibly be eclipsed from this vantage point.”

  “Okay, mister ‘I attended a flight academy,’” Josh replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You wanna explain that in Angla?”

  “They’ve been using equatorial orbits, Josh. We’re two light minutes above the Earth’s northern axis. We can see all sides.”

  “Except under the Earth’s southern axis,” Josh said. “Maybe two of them decided to use a polar orbit.”

  “Or maybe two of them went to FTL to follow that cruiser,” Loki said. “We should jump to the other side and check.”

  “That’s not on our jump schedule,” Josh said as he checked the waypoint list given to them by the Aurora’s flight controller.

  “We need to check, Josh.”

  “I’m not getting chewed out a second time.”

  “Josh, the captain doesn’t want us to be mindless robots; he wants us to think on our feet,” Loki insisted. “Besides, his orders were to keep an eye out for departing ships. We’re just trying to verify whether or not any ships actually did depart.”

  “I’m already on thin ice with the captain, and so are you. Granted, your ice isn’t as thin as mine, but if we go jumping around at will, it just might be.”

  “I’m plotting the first of two jumps to get us to the other side,” Loki stated. “Either bring us on course for the first waypoint or I will.”

  “Fine,” Josh agreed reluctantly. He brought the Falcon into a smooth turn to port, dipping the nose down in the process.

  “Jumping in three……”

  “On course for first waypoint,” Josh announced as he finished his course change.

  “Two……”

  Their visors became opaque to protect their eyes from the jump flash.

  “One……”

  “At least we’ll be able to keep each other company in the brig,” Josh mumbled.

  “Jump.” The blue-white jump flash washed over them. “Jump complete,” Loki announced as their visors became clear again. “Come twelve degrees to port and hold current speed.”

  “Turning,” Josh answered as he adjusted their heading for the second jump. “I can hear the captain now.”

  “It’s not like we’re attacking someone again,” Loki said.

  “Course change complete,” Josh reported.

  “Jumping in three……”

  “Would you really have taken control?”

  “Two, yes.”

  “Really?” Their visors went opaque again.

  “One……jump.” Again the blue-white flash washed over them.

  “Jump complete,” Loki reported as their visor’s cleared. “Starting scans.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to tell them about our little course deviation,” Josh suggested.

  “Our flight data is automatically transmitted as soon as we enter the Aurora’s traffic pattern,” Loki explained as he studied the images resolving on his display.

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Come about and put us on a course back to Jupiter,” Loki ordered.

  Josh turned partially around, looking over his shoulder at Loki behind him. “No one there?”

  “Nope, they’re gone. I don’t see them anywhere in the system, either.”

  “That means…”

  “That they went to FTL as well,” Loki finished for him.

  * * *

  Commander Taylor stood next to Ensign Delaveaga at the tactical station on the Celestia’s bridge. “If that cruiser is trying to draw the Aurora away from us, then another ship will be coming out of FTL nearby at any moment.”

  “We’re already at general quarters, sir,” Luis said, “and the plasma cannon is powered up and on standby. It can be ready to fire in seconds.”

  “Just the same, I’d feel better if we had our fighters off the deck and patrolling the area.” Cameron turned to face the comm station at the back of the Celestia’s bridge. “Ensign Souza, tell flight to launch our fighters. Have them orbit Metis for now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ensign Souza answered from the comm station.

  Cameron turned and looked at Lieutenant Commander Kovacic standing on the other side of Ensign Delaveaga. “I know;” she said, raising her hand, “I’m probably just being overly cautious.”

  “You’re not expecting me to complain, are you?”

  Twenty Talon fighters sat lined up in five rows of four in the Celestia’s main hangar bay. Facing aft, the pilots waiting patiently in their cockpits chatted on side channels, read their data pads, or just rested while they waited for launch orders. When the order came, they immediately got to work and began spinning up their engines.

  Corinairan flight technicians wearing full pressure suits ran about the Celestia’s open main hangar deck as they disconnected jury-rigged umbilical lines from the first four Talons in the aft most row. As the last technician pulled his umbilical to the side of the bay and clear of the row of Talons, the deck boss signaled the nearest fighter in the first row to proceed aft onto the Celestia’s flight apron.

  The pilot of the first Talon rolled his fighter toward the aft end of the main hangar bay, each fighter next in line following the one before him out. As the first fighter in line rolled out onto the apron, he fired his ascent thrusters and leapt off the deck. He pitched his nose up as his momentum continued to carry him aft. Once his nose reached forty-five degrees in upward pitch, he fired his forward thrusters and began his climb out, yawing over to his left and rolling level with the surface of Metis as he brought his ship to a stable orbital velocity around the tiny moon.

  The well-choreographed routine of the deck crew repeated itself four additional times, the pressure suit clad technicians moving purposefully about the hangar deck as they cycled the twenty Talon fighters out of the bay and into space in less than two minutes.

  * * *

  “Ten seconds to jump,” Mister Riley announced from the Aurora’s navigation station.

  “We’ve received your waypoints,” Cameron said over the comms.

  “We’ll strike them on the way out and on the way back,” Nathan told her. “We’ll be back shortly.”

  “Understood,” Cameron answered. “Celestial Actual out.”

  “Five seconds,” Mister Riley announced.

  “Pitching down,” Mister Chiles announced from the helm.

  “Four…”

  “Two nukes, high-yield, ready for snapshot,” Mister Randeen reported.

  “Three…”

  “Plasma torpedo tubes are at maximum upward deflection.”

  “Two…”

  “We’ll be firing the plasma shots four seconds after the nukes have been launched.”

  “One…”

  “Very well,” Nathan answered. “Just like we planned, gentlemen.”

  “Jumping.”

  The blue-white jump flash washed over the Aurora’s bridge, brilliantly illuminating its interior for a split second. The flash subsided, and the cruiser, only a tiny dot on the view screen, began to grow in size with astonishing speed.

  “Nukes away!” Mister Randeen announced from the tactical station.

  Two Corinairan intercept missiles, armed with high-yield nucl
ear warheads and modified to launch from the Aurora’s torpedo tubes, left her forward tubes at an unusually slow departure speed. Four seconds later, a pair of bright red bolts of plasma energy shot from the Aurora’s upper torpedo tubes on both sides. As the conventional weapons drifted into the course of the rapidly approaching Jung cruiser, the plasma shots streaked away from the Aurora, striking the cruiser’s forward shields a split second after they were launched. The cruiser’s shields glowed reddish-orange as they absorbed most of the energy of the Aurora’s plasma torpedoes. However, several of the cruiser’s forward shield emitters exploded due to the overload caused by the plasma shots.

  Several seconds later, the Aurora disappeared in another flash of blue-white light. The cruiser opened fire with her forward point-defenses, tearing apart one of the two approaching torpedoes. The other torpedo found its target, detonating in a brilliant flash as it struck the cruiser’s already weakened shields. The cruiser’s shields failed, and enough of the blast reached the hull of the cruiser, tearing it apart and sending large chunks in all directions.

  * * *

  “Jump flash,” Ensign Schenker reported from the Celestia’s sensor station.

  “It’s the Falcon,” Luis reported from tactical.

  “Flash traffic from the Falcon,” Ensign Souza announced. “They report two Jung frigates are missing from Earth orbit.”

  Cameron turned quickly to face the comm station. “Do they know where they went?”

  “Current location is…”

  “Contact!” Ensign Schenker interrupted. “Just came out of FTL!”

  “Jung frigate!” Luis reported. “Two hundred kilometers out!”

  “She has weapons range,” Cameron realized, her eyes widening. “Comms, order our fighters to engage the frigate.”

  “Contacts!” Ensign Schenker reported. “Four of them moving fast! Probable missile launch!”