"Good work, very good work. Keep on it. We'll find somewhere suitable soon."
He straightened his back, and for a second felt a spasm run down his body. Bending over to examine the screen had done little for his posture, and he instantly regretted having lifted up so quickly. As he stepped back, he looked at the main bank of screens and the view ahead of them. Blue and green outlines marked various objects, but he was satisfied to see nothing was flagged in red.
"Now. If they can leave us alone for just a few..."
A single blinking light appeared on the tactical map, and the Captain shook his head with irritation.
"Clearly, I spoke too soon."
The tactical officer grunted, and Five-Seven immediately signalled to reposition the secondary gun platforms. Those along the starboard flank swivelled about and locked onto their new targets.
"Anicinàbe heavy fighters, Mantis Class. Three squadrons on approach."
The Captain sniffed as he watched the imagery appear on the screens. He was now getting a feel for the Anicinàbe fleet and their methods of battle. Unlike the Alliance, they seemed to favour larger numbers of less substantial or advanced ships. Instead, relying upon overwhelming firepower from guns and missile systems, greater speed and of course, vast numbers of fighters.
"Ready the guns, but continue forwards."
The trio of Anicinàbe heavy fighter squadrons spun wildly as they moved through the asteroid field. The arrow shaped fighters were similar to the interceptors, but much more heavily armed as befitted their role. The Mantis was well equipped with two distinct weapon systems that allowed the spacecraft to punch well above its weight. Under the hull, and extending out were two antenna shaped objects that housed the pair of 13mm automatic cannons. These were of little danger to capital ships, but perfectly adequate to use at close-range against fighters. They were only secondary to the primary weapon pods on the tips of the delta wings. Each of these large units bristled with high-velocity rocket tubes.
"Incoming rockets! Computer identified over a hundred of them!"
For the first time, Five-Seven sounded rattled.
"A hundred?" Captain Delatorre repeated.
Alarms blasted inside the warship as the crew spun the multiple turrets around to defend the ship. To their surprise, not one of the rockets came anywhere near the ship, and instead struck the nearest group of asteroids. The bombardment continued as the fighters skated around the objects, many vanishing from view before they could in turn be targeted.
"What's going on?" Five-Seven asked.
The tactical officer answered and pointed to the largest of the nearby asteroids. This one made the object that had destroyed the enemy vessel seem like a child's toy in comparison.
"They are targeting the field. It is a problem for us."
There was no more time for discussion, as the second volley hit the asteroid in a continuous bombardment. This massive piece of flotsam was easily the size of an entire starbase and exploded in a bright crescendo, after being hit by a salvo of at least thirty of the powerful rockets. The blast was so great that for a few seconds the entire formation vanished in a fireball. As the energy quickly dissipated, it was replaced by waves of rocks and ice heading out in all directions.
"Incoming objects," said the tactical officer.
Five-Seven opened his mouth to speak, but Captain Delatorre stopped him.
"Move us away from the debris!" he yelled.
As Five-Seven issued new navigation orders, Captain Delatorre turned to the tactical officer.
"Weapons free! Clear us a path through the field, and fast!"
Every one of the secondary gun systems opened fire, surrounding the ships with streaks of gunfire. Most of the debris from the shattered asteroid blasted away into space, but many of those then struck other objects that broke up, filling the ice field with even more dangers. Scores of new objects hurtled towards ANS Titan with the speed of a missile. Even micro-fragments could potentially rip through armour if their closing velocity was high enough, and now there were limitless numbers of them. Even worse was the massive cloud of objects, many bigger than the ship and moving right for her.
"The path is blocked, Captain. This enemy is...impressive. They are using their speed and firepower to harness the energy of the asteroid field against us," said Five-Seven, "A most impressive enemy indeed."
Captain Delatorre shook his head with frustration.
"Well, maybe you can buy them a drink one day and talk about it. Right now, I need options. In the meantime, hit the field with everything we have."
He also pointed to the icons showing the fighters moving in and out of cover.
"And if you happen to get a clear shot at those fighters, hit them!"
The calm Thegn needed no encouragement as he passed on the orders to his subordinates. Her turrets were in action well before the ship even began to turn. The particle blaster turrets joined in with the Gatling guns, making short work of the smaller sections, yet on came the much bigger pieces. Captain Delatorre watched in silence as the manoeuvring engines pushed the bow around. At the same time, the main engines pulsed in short bursts, helping to move them out of danger even more quickly. The large Alliance warship started turning but was much too late to avoid the first wave of rock and ice. Captain Delatorre knew they were in trouble the minute they started to turn.
We're not gonna make it.
He'd witnessed enough battles to know what they could and couldn't do. This threat could destroy them in a single impact. More worrying for him was what would happen to them if they suffered any damage to their power or engine system. Their ability to jump in and out of the system with impunity was their single most important weapon.
"Brace, brace, brace!"
Several huge pieces of debris struck the massive ring at the rear of the ship, part of the interstellar drive system. Large metal plates ripped off, as well as cabling, cooling systems, and electronics. The Captain swore to himself as the warning systems flagged the damage in red on the vessel's schematic.
"There's too much debris," said Five-Seven, "Weapons batteries are still firing, but we can't destroy it all."
"True, and every volley we fire draws more attention to us. Better to slip away than continue shooting."
He accessed another screen and brought up imagery of the enemy forces. The Captain shook his head as he watched the officer do his job. A few years earlier, an Alliance officer would have assumed the enemy had boarded them. Now an Alliance ship operated with an almost complete alien crew.
Well, it's not like we have much of a crew, is it?
He smiled as he looked about the bridge. Apart from the crew needed to manage the spacecraft and ground units on board, the ship could actually be operated entirely by remote. The dozen officers in this open part of the ship were not strictly required, though he felt much more comfortable having experienced officers in the loop. He noticed more red icons as the fighters came in from behind. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Thegn officers were already on it, and firing at the fighters with a mixture of coilgun turrets and particle blasters.
"Yeah, I see that."
The group of fighters avoided yet more turret fire, and then vanished behind large clouds of ice they'd already created. Additional rockets slammed into more rock, turning the area around the ship into a deadly minefield of sharp fragments, each capable of destroying a ship on its own. More slammed into the flank until finally an entire weapon battery ripped from its housing and spun off wildly into space.
"Okay, bring us about, and target this location."
Captain Delatorre pointed to the largest section of rock ice, and for a moment Five-Seven looked uncertain. Of all the debris moving around the planet, this looked by far the worst section. There was nothing visible behind it at all.
"Do it."
"Captain."
The vessel levelled off while more debris continued to pummel the outer hull. Several struck hard enough to cause light damage, but the
y both ignored that for the moment. Red markers moved to the central screen and then closer together to show the forward batteries were aligned and focussed. Five-Seven glanced over to the Captain.
"Ready."
"Fire!"
The ship shuddered violently as the pair of 255mm mass driver bombardment cannons opened fire. These huge weapons hurled massive explosive projectiles deep into the heart of the debris. One after the other they pulverized the target, smashing rock and ice with equal ease. Then came the gentle pulsing as the four heavy particle cannons joined in, exploding whatever they hit first.
"Good work, but keep firing."
Five-Seven remained silent as he sent command orders through the computer system to their gunners. The guns moved to their standard cycle, and with each burst created a tunnel through the field, one almost wide enough for the ship to get through.
"Engines on full, take us through."
Five-Seven nodded and issued orders to the crew.
"Ready the mines. I want this placed sealed up once we're through. As soon as we're clear, change course and head for the next largest area of debris. Once there, we'll rig for silent running. It's time to go dark. We've got repair work to do."
Five-Seven seemed surprised.
"You wish to stop for maintenance?"
Captain Delatorre nodded to the main screens.
"No, I want to make sure we are combat effective for when the time comes. We can deal with one ship at a time, but an entire fleet? We have to be ready."
"Understood, Captain. We've are breaking through...now."
The ship crashed into the breach with a sickening crunch, but although the outer hull took a beating, it was little more than slowly moving ice, and by taking their time and using the particle weapons, they pushed through.
Like an icebreaker moving through an ice field.
Captain Delatorre nearly smiled as he recalled the old stories of ships in the polar regions of old Earth. Back then the great iron ships had crunched their way through the ice. His expression changed as the warship’s hull began to groan. Images of old ships crushed by ice popped into his mind, and any sense of calm quickly vanished. Only when they burst through on the other side, surrounded by floating ice clouds, did he exhale. Directly ahead were a thin haze of particles, and no sign of the enemy fighters.
"Excellent. Cover our path and lay in a course..."
His hand wandered and then stopped at spotting a large group of jagged asteroids. They were so great that smaller debris fields surrounded them like a thick atmosphere.
"Right there. That'll do nicely."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hyndla, Southern Depression
21 October 2472
Spartan's thoughts drifted as they travelled the thousands of kilometres to their destination. The journey to Hyndla was not an easy one, and required them running the gauntlet of Nakoma's air defences along the entire breadth of Karnak's single continent. So far, they made it undetected, but there was always the chance that a stray radar signal would catch them, even at this height, and end their mission before it even began.
This is gonna be an interesting one.
With his eyes shut, and his mind drifting, Spartan still found it hard to keep his attention away from the mission. He ran over the broad details of the plan they'd made just before leaving, the secret plan between him, Kanjana, the twins, and Khan. He was confident it would work, but from experience, there was always much that could go wrong. He opened his eyes and looked at the odd group of warriors accompanying him.
This is not what I expected a decade ago.
A wry smile formed on his faced as he observed a pair of Helions going through their loading routines. It was all standard procedure, and something he'd seen a hundred times before. Then his smile turned to a frown.
What is that?
A blinking icon inside his visor marked an urgent message alert from Melantias. He held his breath as he activated the communications subsystem that downloaded the file. Three times it came up with errors until finally showing complete. That surprised him, as they'd put a great deal of effort into establishing planet-wide communications.
Weird. Who's blocking the orbital repeaters?
There were only two ways to stop the radio communications used by the mercenaries, and that was either eliminate the repeaters in orbit, or to block the signals using ground or orbital jammers. A quick check showed he still had network access to his scouting parties at other locations on the planet.
Melantias only? Why are signals being blocked in and out of there?
He brought up parts of the damaged data until there was enough to work with. Due to the scrambled nature of the file, it was necessary to have at least the majority of it before there would be any chance of retrieving the data. To his surprise, it was encoded using an Alliance cipher. It took nearly a minute for his personal subroutines to successful decrypt it using his privileged data key and biometrics.
This isn't just Alliance secured traffic. This is senior command only.
Spartan's eyebrows rose at the realisation this was designed for him, and the handful of senior leaders at Taxxu that he trusted. Not even Captain Delatorre would be able to read the information, and that unnerved him.
What's going on out there?
A grey image, heavily censored to show just the shape of a figure spoke. Even with the distortion added, he knew who it was immediately.
"Olik?"
The figure shifted a little before speaking.
"Spartan. Something is going on here, and I think our units are being sidelined. The..."
The image vanished , and the audio broke up into digital noises that hurt his ears. It returned in stops and starts before moving back two seconds and continuing mid-sentence.
"...are on the move, and they've stripped out half the garrison was well."
None of that was of much of a surprise to him. The shape moved closer, and the volume of the voice increased proportionately.
"I overheard two of the officers, and I had it translated twice to check."
Olik shook his head, clearly annoyed at what he'd heard.
"They are planning a full-scale assault, as we agreed. But they will attack, no matter if you succeed in pulling away Nakoma."
Spartan looked confused as he listened. The plan had always been for them to attack. Only by encouraging a diversion in the South had he been able to persuade them not to attack immediately. None of this was news, not yet.
"I've heard it from more than one group that they are certain your mission will fail. Their only concern is that you will fail too early in your insurrection. One said your arrogance will render our remaining forces and Alliance interests on Karnak irrelevant, and he seemed happy about that."
Spartan's nostrils flared once more.
So, they want our help when everything hits the fan. Then when it looks like we might have a chance for victory, they give us the boot.
Spartan growled to himself, his anger starting to send adrenalin coursing through his body. He knew he needed to calm down, but after all he'd already done, and the people they'd lost, this just pushed him over the edge.
Irrelevant, I'll show them irrelevant.
"Tenskwatawa," said Spartan through clenched teeth, "I knew he'd screw me."
It was a pre-recorded message, yet there seemed to be a natural pause for Spartan to vent. A Helion mercenary spotted his expression, but sensibly looked away.
"Spartan, my best estimate is that even if they send everything right now, it will still take time to cross the ground to the capital. Nakoma controls the sky, so they'll have to move slowly. They could make it to Montu in around two months. That should be the second week of December, and they are entering the city as soon as they get there. That gives you less than two months to do what you need to do. Draw Nakoma out."
Spartan clenched his teeth at that last part.
"The stupid, idiotic..."
The recorded message continued,
and now the tone lowered.
"There's something else, and this part I'm not sure about. One of them talked about December 12th being ‘the day,’ and it sounded like a big deal. Be careful out there, Spartan. I don't like it, not one bit."
The head shifted, and Olik moved back to his more comfortable position. This time he spoke normally, as though somebody had arrived that he didn't trust.
"I'll be back on my feet soon. In the meantime, I'm putting together a brigade of volunteers to defend the city. No sense leaving this place undefended. If you need me, you know where to find me. Watch your back out there."
The image vanished. Spartan transferred the file to his personal repository, protected with a high-level encryption engine. He closed his eyes and allowed his pulse to slow down. When his eyes reopened, he found the smiling face of Syala alongside him.
"Everything okay?"
Spartan shrugged and did his best to smile. She was something special; few would argue that. Her armour looked even more battered that normal, though it had been modified in such a way it exaggerated her voluptuous figure. She noticed his eyes dropping down and laughed.
"Hey, like what you see?"
Spartan wasn't embarrassed, and when their eyes met, she saw warmth in them, perhaps tinged with a little sadness.
"You know I do."
Movement behind her turned his attention away, and he smiled to himself as Syala's twin sister, Arana, approached. Her armour was similar to Syala's, though in a slightly better state of repair.
"Spartan. We'll be there shortly. Is everything ready for the mission?"
Spartan nodded in reply.
"I've received confirmation from Commander Knaro. We're on."
Arana leaned in close, so close that Spartan could smell her neck as she whispered in her ear, "I enjoyed last night."
Spartan's brow tightened in confusion, and then he saw Syala laughing. Arana joined in while Spartan shook his head.
"Funny, Arana, very funny. You know I can always tell the two of you apart, right?"
Battle for Karnak (Star Crusades: Mercenaries, Book 4) Page 12
