The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict

by Jeff Sims

  Clowy contacted Kip and said, “You are clear to launch and begin the attack.”

  Christopher Armstrong (Kip) replied, “Repeating orders for clarification. We are clear to launch, fly directly to the enemy, engage and kill them in any way possible, and rendezvous with the ship when finished.”

  Clowy responded, “Yes.”

  As the bridge officer in charge of the fighter wing, Clowy was required to give a motivational speech. She knew that the humans weren’t able to comprehend long winded speeches, so she opened a channel to all of them and offered, “Do a good job of hunting them to hell.” She smiled brightly at her speech.

  Kip contacted the other 3 pilots in the top row of the elevator and said, “Launch.”

  Kip disengaged his safety and allowed the gravity plate to sling him off the ship. He angled his fighter up and around the ship, disengaged manual mode that he had used for the side by side launch, and waited. The elevator indexed up one row and the next 4 fighters launched. Three repeats later Alpha squadron was in a single file line and headed perfectly straight.

  Meanwhile, the crew pushed 4 fighters from the Lost First squadron off of the opposite side of the hangar. These pilots flew under the ship and landed in the bottom 2 rows of the elevators that had just been evacuated by Alpha squadron.

  With two squadrons, it became clear that both needed names. Kip was unwilling to give up the name Alpha, so Jim named his squadron the First squadron. He loved the play on words the name implied.

  The crew now raced to reload the elevators with the remaining 16 fighters from the First squadron. The head start was critical because they only had 10 minutes to complete the task before the Sunflower reached Influenla. The task normally took 60 minutes.

  Ella again activated a hyperspace window in front of the cruiser. The entire bridge crew watched the main monitor as all 20 pilots flew through the window and disappeared. Ella rapidly reset the hyper window and followed the asteroid and fighters in hyperspace.

  Ella asked absentmindedly, “Do you really think the fighters will be able to fly through hyperspace?”

  Solear said, “Well, we will know in 10 minutes. Bridge crew, it is time to change our clothes.”

  Kip immediately decided that he did not like traveling through hyperspace in what basically amounted to a coffin. This was strange because when the cruiser jumped he rarely noticed. Kip figured it was simply his nerves and forced himself to calm down and relax. It didn’t work.

  He was flying the fighter in automated mode. They had decided to stay out of fully manual mode because of a fear of sensory overload from their surroundings. Although Kip couldn’t see anything, he felt weird, displaced in time or perhaps reality.

  During the planning session, Kip volunteered, no really he demanded, that his squadron be allowed to make the hyperspace jump and attack the frigate. He felt that he needed to prove himself and his squadron to Jim and the other original pilots. He had been in hyperspace less than a minute and the joy he had felt from volunteering was rapidly diminishing.

  After 5 minutes the fear was tangible. He couldn’t contact the other fighters and he couldn’t navigate. He was locked into a course and had no way of verifying if it was correct. Since the fighters did not have a hyper drive, the only way for them to exit hyperspace was to run directly into a gravity field. If their trajectory was off by only a degree, they would miss Influenla and eventually die from starvation in hyperspace.

  Flying in a straight line in automatic mode was literally the easiest thing to do in a fighter. However, Kip noted that after 8 minutes he was struggling to keep it perfectly straight. The next two minutes he tried counting sheep to keep his mind from wandering too far into the unknown.

  He reached a sizeable flock when an alarm sounded on his control board and he was harshly thrust back into real time and space. Kip shook himself back into complete consciousness and started both an active and a passive scan. He breathed a sigh of relief. That had been the longest 10 minutes in his life.

  The active scan blipped and showed that a fighter appeared behind him. Rubie made it through. Rubie opened a private channel and said, “Let’s not volunteer to do that again.”

  Kip replied, “Agreed. No more volunteering.”

  The passive scanner completed the scan of the immediate area. The spindle station and the asteroid were exactly where they were supposed to be. This wasn’t surprising since neither could move without extraordinary effort. The Hiriculan command carrier was stationed next to the asteroid and the Alliance battleship Guardian was parked near it. The remainder of the Alliance fleet was docked at the station.

  The passive scanner completed plotting the rest of the system. There was a large fleet of ships approaching the station from the opposite direction. There were 12 Hiriculan warships and four large passenger liners. They were traveling in real-time and were 40 minutes away from the station. Kip realized that if they had delayed the mission an hour longer the prisoners would already have been transferred.

  Finally, Kip focused on his primary target, the frigate Bloodlust. The ship was also where it was supposed to be, patrolling near the exit of the Opron – Influenla hyperspace lane. The frigate was well inside the gravity limit and traveling relatively slowly, around .02 light.

  Kip’s fighter was less than a 2 minute flight from the enemy ship. The enemy would not be able to run away from him in sub-light or jump to hyperspace. The ship could not escape, meaning that his jump through hyperspace had been successful.

  He checked the time. Even though he had departed 90 seconds after the meteoroid, it hadn’t appeared yet because it was traveling 11 seconds farther in hyperspace. If the timing was correct, the meteoroid was going to appear 22 seconds from now.

  Kip waited 20 seconds for all of the other fighters in his squadron to appear. He opened a channel to the other pilots and said, “All fighters blunt your exterior sensors now!”

  Kip turned his sensor package down to its lowest setting. Even at the lowest setting, the blast from their meteoroid hitting the stationary asteroid was tremendous.

  The appropriately named Meteoroid Maelstrom exited hyperspace deep inside Influenla’s gravity well. The meteoroid was glowing red hot and giving off a small plume similar to a comet. The front face was and sides were worn smooth and appeared glass-like. As planned, the meteoroid still retained a speed of .07 light and a diameter of 9 meters.

  It traveled 28,000 kilometers in 1.3 seconds and slammed directly into the asteroid guarding the space station. The resulting impact was horrendous. The meteoroid burrowed about 1/3 of the way through the asteroid and disintegrated.

  Although the meteoroid missed the Hiriculan ion cannon installation, the massive kinetic energy release blew a huge fragment off of the asteroid and fractured the asteroid’s core. The fracture released its energy via a massive volcano that spewed out in every direction. However, most of the lava took the path of least resistance and flowed directly up the ion cannon barrels.

  Roughly 9 seconds after impact the ion cannons were destroyed and the technicians and military members working at the installation were incinerated. The blast created a cosmic wave that blew dust and small chunks of lava for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. The dust wave engulfed the command carrier and temporarily blinded it.

  Kip said, “Alpha squadron go ghost; box formation. Set full shield power facing forward.”

  The box formation is 4 rows of 5 fighters. It wasn’t technically a square, but it was a close approximation. Oddly enough though, the formation of 5 rows of 4 fighters is called the 54 formation. Kip lobbied for the 54 formation to be called the box and 1, but he was overruled by Jim and practically everyone else.

  Kip switched his fighter to manual and felt a surge of information flood his brain. He panicked for a second because the readings from the asteroid explosion were crowding out the normal information. Another second later though he found yellow and linked it. The rest of the colors fell into place and Kip felt supre
mely relaxed and in tune with his surroundings.

  They were now only 30 seconds away from the frigate. Kip verified that all of the pilots had switched to manual mode. There was no response from enemy ship yet and no signs that they were about to launch fighters. Kip hoped that they were in shock from the meteoroid strike and not paying attention.

  Kip opened a channel to all of the other fighters and said, “Commence attack, operation battleship.” Kip decided that the squadron would attack the frigate with the typical firing approach used to destroy a battleship. It might prove to be overkill, but they absolutely, positively had to kill it in one pass.

  The fighters crossed the intervening distance without issue. There was no counter missile fire or even defensive lasers. The first five fighters fired one shield buster missile apiece and peeled off of the formation. They angled up and to the left. The missiles traveled a short distance and struck the side of the frigate, destroying the shield deflectors in that area. The missile strikes were placed in line with the power generator.

  Three seconds later the second row made its pass. This wave had to evade light, defensive fire during their run. Apparently someone on the enemy ship finally noticed their presence. The wing fired an additional 5 shield buster missiles and followed the first wing’s maneuver up and away from the frigate. These 5 missiles struck the same general spot, lowered a significant section of the shields in that area, and impacted the hull.

  The third wing followed exactly 4 seconds after the second. The defensive fire was higher and better focused by now. Several of the fighters actually had to dodge to avoid the on-coming laser fire. The fighters reached the golden zone, the point where they were so close to the enemy ship that their missiles couldn’t miss and still far enough away to have room to maneuver.

  This group split their missile fire between two shield busters, two ship busters, and one transponder. The two shield busters hit first and opened a sizeable gap in the outer hull. The first ship buster struck and significantly widened the hole in the outer hull and blew a large hole in the inner hull.

  The second ship buster passed through the outer and inner hole and blew away the interior cabins. There was now a clear pathway directly to the power generator. The transponder sailed through the passageway, attached to power generator, and activated. This wing also angled up and away.

  Kip originally intended to renumber the members of Alpha squadron based on each pilot’s rankings instead of the arbitrary numbers he had assigned to the members of Ghostrider and Chaos squadrons. However, for one reason or another he had never done it. Now it didn’t seem to matter. The number was now an identification, not a measure of performance.

  As a result, the five remaining pilots were all originally from Ghostrider squadron. Gus called his sub-squadron members and said, “Single file in order behind me, one second interval. Roll tide.”

  The final wave of five fighters made their pass. This time the defensive laser fire was intense and well-coordinated. Gus bobbed left, then left again, then left a third time. He was forced to make a 270 degree spin to avoid multiple lasers. Then Gus reached the correct spot. He was nearly beside the cruiser. His missile couldn’t miss even if he chose to fire it with the electronic tracking turned off.

  Gus fired his ship buster missile and banked up and away. The four fighters behind him also fired their ship buster missiles and banked away to join the rest of the squadron.

  Kip said, “Set shields to rear, lower sensors, and full power to plasma thrusters.”

  Gus’ ship buster missile locked onto transponder signal and safely navigated through the outer and inner hull and impacted in engineering, instantly evaporating everyone there. It blew an even bigger hole through the ship and lightly penetrated the outer casing of the power generator.

  The second missile struck a second later and continued the destruction. There was now a significant hole in the power generator’s case and a passageway extending from the outer hull to the power generator big enough to drive a late model Cadillac Coupe de Ville through. The power generator was now severely damaged. It was going to lose containment and explode in approximately 20 seconds.

  However, they didn’t have to wait that long. The third missile hit less than a second after the second one and struck directly inside the power generator. Its explosion ignited the polonium in the core and created a massive secondary explosion that ripped through the ship.

  The ship appeared to vibrate back and forth several times in the span of a second. The explosion pulverized the ship and created a huge cloud of expanding metallic dust. There was nothing left of the frigate bigger than a molecule.

  The fourth and fifth missiles weren’t necessary; the ship was already obliterated. However, they exploded together a second later and atomized any remaining molecule in the vicinity. The shock wave was so huge that it nearly caught the fleeing fighters.

  ……………..

  Clap’la was sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the frigate Bloodlust and admiring his new ship and his recent promotion. He smiled as he thought about it. Working directly for Grand Admiral Fruid’la certainly had its benefits.

  If you do well, you generally get promoted well above your station. For instance, he had jumped several other more experienced candidates to get command of this vessel. However, those that perform poorly are often harshly punished.

  Clap’la thought about his old rival Loid’la. When the battleship lost sight of the enemy cruiser Sunflower during the final moments of the battle of Trilon, he successfully placed the blame for the failure solely on Loid’la. He had heard that Loid’la had been stripped of his military rank, banished to a faraway location, and forced to work with raw sewage.

  “A fitting end for that loser,” Clap’la summarized. He was still thinking about that when the asteroid beside the Spindle Station suddenly blew up.

  Clap’la yelled, “Navigation, plot a course to the asteroid; Communications contact the asteroid and see if they need help, Weapons, scan the area and find out what happened.” Clap’la avoided using their names as a way to assert his authority.

  The weapons officer responded, “Scanning the asteroid now. It isn’t very far so we should have the results in a moment.”

  The navigation officer said, “Based on the light our passive sensors received, it looks like they may have dug too deeply into the asteroid and set off a volcano.”

  Clap’la replied, “Yes. I warned them about digging too deeply and over mining.”

  Weapons replied, “I just reviewed the camera feed. Look.”

  The bridge crew watched as a meteoroid appeared literally out of nowhere and slammed into the side of their base. They continued watching as the asteroid self-destructed from the strike.

  Clap’la concluded, “That comet was traveling way too fast to be a natural occurrence. Someone sent it through hyperspace and aimed it directly at the base.”

  The weapons officer yelled, “We’re under attack!”

  Clap’la was just about to admonish the weapons officer for stealing his conclusion when he felt the side of his ship rock from an explosion. Clap’la yelled, “Redirect active scanners. Find what was responsible.”

  Weapons responded, “Active scanner shows a squadron of 20 Alliance fighters right beside us. They are firing on us.”

  “Fighters,” echoed Clap’la. “Activate defenses. Arm defensive missiles and fire when ready.” He planned to say more but was stopped by the second set of explosions.

  Weapons responded, “The enemy salvo has severely damaged our hull. We can no longer jump.”

  Clap’la checked the full scan. He couldn’t locate the enemy cruiser that must have launched these fighters. He was extremely frustrated that the enemy was able to sneak up on him so easily. It just didn’t seem possible.

  They felt a third set of explosions. Communications said, “The last round penetrated our inner hull. We are venting atmosphere in one compartment. The emergency system activated and sea
led the area.

  Clap’la couldn’t believe this was happening. Twenty puny fighters were tearing his ship apart. Then the final round of missiles hit the frigate and Clap’la and his crew literally ceased to exist.

  ………………..

  “Are you sure this will work?” Paul asked for probably the 5th time.

  “I don’t know,” Becky responded. “It should.”

  Paul looked at her pleadingly. Clearly he wanted a thorough explanation.

  Becky continued, “We have a detailed scan of the frigate and we have records of communication from it. We know that it is called the Bloodlust. I was able to use the information to adjust the modulation frequency of the Hiriculan transport.”

  “So it will work,” stated Paul.

  Becky replied, “Yes. At least I think so. I mean I am really confident that it will pass a casual check. The Hiriculans should believe that the transport is from the Bloodlust if they don’t check thoroughly.”

  Paul and the other 4 marines were standing inside the Hiriculan transport. They were already dressed in their power armor and trying hard not to pace around nervously because there was precious little room to move inside the transport. Besides the marines, there was an acetylene torch and a large steel plate. Further, one of the Alliance Armored Units was lying in the middle of the floor.

  Ella had insisted not only on flying the shuttle, but also on accompanying the marines once inside. She seemed to know the station backward and forward and Paul hadn’t been able to think of a reason to deny her. However, he had insisted that she wear an AAU suit once they were inside.

  Paul replied, “Okay. I trust you.”

  Even though the wait was only 4 minutes, it was frustrating Paul. He was ready to go.

  ……………

  Solear hurried up a level to his quarters. He removed his short sleeve smart suit and replaced it the long sleeve version. He attached the gloves just past the wrists on the outside of his forearm. He could reach them immediately if needed. Next he removed his slippers and replaced them with the heavy boots. Finally, he attached the helmet to the back of his neck. The helmet was fabric and was rolled up. It looked like a collar on the shirt.