The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel

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The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel Page 63

by Trevor Wyatt


  As she rushed into the hangar, she saw her team already suited up and getting into their Hunters. Powers was waiting for her with Vanessa. They helped her into her flight suit, then she climbed as fast as she could into her cockpit. Putting her helmet on and hearing the familiar hiss of the suit’s air circulator kicking in, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

  She was always jazzed up for a fight, but ever since the Hunters were brought on board, she felt this whole new level of adrenaline, a new level of joy when she got to fly. Her first fight, only a few days ago, gave her such a rush that it was almost orgasmic in feeling. Knowing that she was about to fly and fight again, she struggled to keep her voice level and calm.

  “Alright, people. We got three cruisers, six shuttles, and three dozen raiders out there. We need to keep it loose and fast while staying away from the cruisers. They’ll light us up like we’re nothing. The shuttles have been retrofitted with lasers and missiles, and probably shields too, but they have no speed or maneuverability. We know the raiders—they can fly. But their pilots suck. Let’s knock them out.”

  “Yes ma’am!” came the universal reply. Each Hunter floated away from their locks and exited the hangar doors. Eleven fighters, twenty-three pilots, about to take on forty-two different little ships.

  “Diamond formation, top to bottom. Break hard when we’re within range of their blasters. Leave the shuttles to me and Jasper to test. The rest of you, fly circles around those damn raiders.”

  Her HUD display blinked and warned that one of the shuttles had already fired their missiles.

  “Heads up! Missiles inbound.” Three of her Hunters barely broke formation and fired on the missiles, destroying a few hundred klicks in front of them. They rejoined the formation and flew on.

  Ashley made note of the shuttle that had fired at them; it was turning away and heading back towards the cruisers.

  Coward, Ashley thought as a slight smirk formed on her mouth.

  They kept in tight formation, heading straight for the raiders—but something was bothering Ashley.

  “Powers, how many raiders are you counting?”

  “You saw it too? I’m only counting twenty-nine. A few of the others are reporting the same.”

  “Fuck. Fin…” She was interrupted by laser fire exploding within their formation. Screams and shouts filled her ears as the formation broke, each Hunter splitting off, two of them already damaged. The seven missing raiders flew by from underneath, heading up.

  “Francois, Vizzenzi, pair off and fight together. The rest of you, hit the fuckers. Powers, let’s play,” Ashley commanded, flinging her Hunter up after the seven raiders and using her superior speed to hunt them down.

  She chased two of them down fairly quickly, blasting them and sending pieces of each ship careening off into the vastness of space. Two more went down almost as fast. The other three were flying back for the rest of the raiders, looking to join their ranks. Thirty-two left.

  Looking to her left, Ashley saw Jasper attacking one of the shuttles that had tried to sneak up on them. She could see a few of his lasers get deflected by a shield, but then his blasts struck home. Six shots—that was all the shuttles could withstand before their shields dropped.

  “Nice job, Jasper! Everyone, listen up! The shuttles’ shields are weak. They can only withstand about six shots from our lasers before their shields go down. Hit them from the sides or behind, don’t take them head on or they can fire back.”

  Her people acknowledged, then all she could hear was shouts, calls for help, calling out targets and warnings as they engaged the Udenar raiders.

  They’re fucking bats, that’s what they are. And I hate bats, Ashley thought, gritting her teeth.

  Ashley felt a rush of intensity as she flung her Hunter around, avoiding laser fire and chasing down Bats. Her people were fairing pretty well, and it helped that The Seeker was able to provide some help. Flipping a toggle next to her screen, she was able to see that The Seeker had not yet engaged with the cruisers, so they were providing some laser fire.

  Three Bats and a shuttle disappeared in brilliant flashes of light as Jeryl fired off a few more shots. Flipping her screen back to what was in front of her, Ashley banked hard left as she fired off two of her missiles.

  She couldn’t help but let out a loud Whoo! as her missiles hit their targets. Powers kept her up to date on targets, aggressors, and how the others were doing. Francois was gone, his Hunter hit by four Bats.

  Cursing, Ashley threw caution to the wind and flew directly toward the heaviest concentration of Bats. Her finger rarely left the trigger as she weaved, zagged, bobbed and spun her way through them.

  “Jesus, I think I’m gonna throw up!” Powers said through clenched teeth. Ashley laughed as she flung the Hunter to the right, avoiding a missile and enjoying how it destroyed one of the Bats chasing her.

  “Ashley! Get out of there, the cruisers are bearing down on you!” Jeryl’s voice suddenly blasted in her ear.

  Ashley looked up and saw two of the three cruisers beginning to engage The Seeker while the third coming towards them. She could see two of their rail guns move, repositioning themselves.

  “Hunters, SCATTER!” She hit the brakes, flipped her Hunter over, and engaged her thrusters at full power. Somehow, the three Bats that were chasing her flew right past without touching her. She flew her Hunter with ease through the mess, seeing Jasper come up on her left. Ashley flashed him a thumbs-up—then his Hunter vanished in an explosion that temporarily blinded her.

  “JASPER!” Her scream echoed through her cockpit, along with the screams and shouts of her nine remaining Hunters. “God fucking dammit! Hunters, get back to The Seeker to regroup. We’re killing every last one of these fucking fuckers!”

  “Ma’am…we got a problem!”

  “What is it, Vizzenzi?”

  “More ships just came out of FTL, ma’am. A shit load more ships. Not counting the dozen raiders that are left, there’s fifty ships out here ma’am.”

  “Fuck! Jeryl?”

  “We see them. Get your asses back here, there’s nothing else you can do out there.”

  “Bullshit. We can still hurt those bastards. What showed up?”

  “At least another dozen raiders and a bunch of Udenar ships…actual Udenar ships this time, not Tyreesian cast-offs.” Ashley flipped her screen to look behind her, then zoomed in.

  Thirty-some-odd ships of various designs and sizes were popping into space, but none of them were the size of the three cruisers. As a matter of fact, the biggest of the newcomers was about the size of a mid-level drop ship—no more than a ten-person crew with maybe double the ordinance of the Hunters.

  “Screw it, we can hit them. Hunters, anyone not able to fight, go back to The Seeker and help out there. The rest of you, let’s tear these ugly-ass bitches up.”

  Ashley flipped off her communicator when Jeryl tried to say something, brought her Hunter back around, and flew right into the teeth of the Udenar fleet. Out of the ten remaining Hunters, six flew with her. On her screen, she saw that Vizzenzi, Thompson, and Corrins were docking.

  “Keep track of The Seeker, Powers. I want to know how she’s holding up.”

  “Will do. They want to be out here, you know that?”

  “I know. How bad were they?” Ashley replied, hiding the disappointment that she felt.

  “Vizzenzi is done, her Hunter was barely holding together. Corrins lost weapon systems, and Thompson has a broken leg. His backup might come back out.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Using her HUD to flip to all of her Hunters, Ashley ordered them all to keep an eye on their payloads and to return to The Seeker for reload if they needed to.

  The seven of them were like wolves in a field of sheep. They cut through the raiders, utilizing their superior speed to avoid laser fire. Ashley and Powers seemed to be everywhere, bailing out a team member here, shredding a Bat or four there, playing chicken with Udenar shuttles tr
ying to bear down on a Hunter.

  From a distance, it looked as though seven wasps were doing what they wanted against a myriad of very slow birds.

  It was an amazing thing to watch…but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.

  The Seeker was taking a beating, unable to get themselves away from the nearly fifty ships attacking her from almost every direction. The Hunters were streaming in and out of The Seeker’s hangar, getting missiles reloaded and switching pilots in a steady flow.

  Ashley went in too, hating how slow she was being reloaded, even though she knew it was being done as fast as possible.

  “Ashley, we need to find a way out of here. We need at least a small hole to fly through, we’re not going to last much longer,” Jeryl said through comm.

  “We’ll figure it out.” Then she saw several of the flight crew running for one of the windows. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Holy shit…I never thought I’d see this. Confederation ships just showed up and they’re hitting the Udenar.”

  “About fucking time!” Pointing at one of the flight crew, Ashley yelled, “Get me back out there!”

  Jeryl

  The damn AI was wrong. Forty-one percent chances against this? Jeryl’s real worry was whether or not any of the Hunters were going to be destroyed. He was worried about his ship and crew, but there was no way that those cruisers and shuttles could destroy them. His crew was too damn good at what they did to lose to crappy looking ships like that.

  “Ferriero, give the Hunters some cover fire. Docherty, get the cruisers’ attention. I don’t want them looking at our people out there.”

  “Yes, sir,” the two navigation officers replied.

  Jeryl nodded and went back to his chair. He watched Ashley and her team put themselves into a diamond formation through his little screen. If they did what he thought they were going to, they would stay in tight formation until the enemy fired, then they would break off, creating chaos wherever they went, then coming back together a few seconds later.

  He saw the seven raiders break off from the rest, going down. It looked like they were going to try to fly up on the Hunters.

  “Ferriero, can we fire yet?”

  “Not yet, sir. Twenty more seconds.”

  “Damn.”

  The seven raiders flew into the formation, hitting two of the Hunters and breaking the formation up.

  Damn, she didn’t see them. Maybe I should’ve given her a warning, Jeryl thought, shaking his head.

  Then, the chaos started.

  The Hunters broke off, flying everywhere, hitting everything. Two of them were damaged but are still going strong. Jeryl watched, keeping an eye on the cruisers that were coming for The Seeker, but just watching his wife and her team wreak havoc on the Udenar.

  Then one of the Hunters was attacked by four Udenar at once. Ferriero fired in the direction, but the Hunter was destroyed before The Seeker’s lasers impacted. Looking at his screen, Jeryl saw that it was Francois Peirot, one of his Petty Officers from the original crew. The co-pilot was someone that Jeryl didn’t recognize, a Petty Officer Kamil Stacic. He felt terrible that he couldn’t place a face to the name.

  Docherty’s voice broke his momentary self-loathing. “Sir, cruisers engaging.”

  Snapping his head up, Jeryl saw two of the three cruisers in front of them, coming in line to fire. “Take evasive action. Rail guns and lasers, save the particle beam for when we need it.”

  “Aye, sir.” Docherty banked The Seeker to its left, Ferriero fired on the nearest of the two, and Jeryl watched as shields deflected their shots. “Tira, keep an eye on the Hunters and let me know what’s happening with them.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  While he could keep an eye on them while dealing with the cruisers, he wanted his full concentration on what was happening right now. The Seeker shook with each laser blast the shields absorbed, and Docherty and Ferriero moved and fired in return.

  The cruisers weren’t a match for The Seeker, but they weren’t stupid. After the first few seconds of fighting, one of the cruisers went up high while the other went left, trying to put The Seeker in between them from different angles. It worked.

  Shields were dropping at a steady clip while they tried to get out from between them. Jeryl looked at Mary. “Are you sure those are Udenar cruisers?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered as the ship was rocked by a shot across the top. “They match computer databases.”

  “What about their weapons? Those seem stronger than they should be.”

  “Running a quick scan.” As the ship shook again, Mary’s screen flashed through dozens of pictures before settling on one. “Sir, they’re not typical armaments for Udenar forces. These are CTS-60, weapons made by the Aido Corporation back during the war.”

  “How the hell did they get their hands on that kind of weaponry?”

  “The Aido Corp lost almost a dozen ships the first two years sir. Probably salvaged.”

  “Shit. No wonder they’re doing as much damage as they are.”

  “SIR!” Ferriero yelled. He was pointing at the screen where the third cruiser was lining up to fire at the Hunters.

  Jeryl reached past Mary, pushing the comm button for the Hunters. “Ashley! Get out of there, the cruisers are bearing down on you!”

  He could see the Hunters turn and run as the cruiser fired its rail guns. One of the shots missed, but one hit.

  Ashley yelled Jasper’s name, and Mary let out a gasp. She and Jasper had been close, as they had trained together and were roommates for years. Squeezing her shoulder, Jeryl tried to dial up an apologetic nod.

  “Holy shit! Sir, at least forty more ships just came out of FTL!” Docherty suddenly blurted out, bringing them back to the current situation.

  “What the fuck? God damn it! Get me a count, now!” Jeryl rushed back to his seat, getting his screen up.

  “Sir!” Mary punched some buttons and swiped the info to his screen.

  “Jeryl?” Ashley’s voice came in over the comm.

  “We see them. Get your asses back here, there’s nothing else you can do out there.”

  “Bullshit. We can still hurt those bastards. What showed up?”

  Jeryl studied his screen for a second. The ships were oddly different from the first ones that came in. “At least another dozen raiders and a bunch of Udenar ships…actual Udenar ships this time, not Tyreesian cast-offs.”

  “Screw it, we can hit them. Hunters, anyone not able to fight, go back to The Seeker and help out there. The rest of you, let’s tear these ugly-ass bitches up.”

  Jeryl tried to order her back, but she cut off connection. “Dammit.”

  “She’s tenacious,” Tira said from behind him.

  “That, she is.” Hitting a switch on his screen, Jeryl called up the hangar. “Templeton! You got Hunters coming in for repairs and reload, work on them faster than you’ve ever done before.”

  Without even waiting for an answer, he cut off the comm and focused on the fight at hand. One of the cruisers was badly damaged and was trying to limp away, but the other one was still firing away at them. The Seeker was down to fifty percent shields, and they were going to drop fast.

  They were getting surrounded in a hurry. Fifty ships surrounded them, pelting them from all sides.

  “Tira, keep those shields up! Docherty, pay attention to the left. Ferriero, up top!” Jeryl’s adrenaline reflected on the way he handled everything at one time; he was shouting orders, talking to engineering, keeping up with Templeton, studying the Udenar, and trying to find a way out of the choke hold they were in.

  Then The Seeker was hit hard—so hard that the entire CNC was rocked, knocking people from their seats and off their feet. Jeryl was flung from his seat, rolling into the back of Ferriero’s chair, and Ferriero almost falling on top of him.

  Jeryl pushed him back into his seat, then tried to rise to his feet. He could see Docherty a few feet away from him, trying to help one of the crew up—when
another blast hit, causing a small explosion on the bridge and sending everyone flying again.

  Jeryl was momentarily dazed. Shouts and screams echoed around him and things were a blur, then everything came back in sharp recognition. Automated systems had put out a small fire, Tira was helping him to his feet, Mary was yelling out orders, and Ferriero was calling for help.

  Jeryl looked around and saw Docherty, his body lying at an awkward angle at the captain’s chair. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing.

  “He must have hit his head and snapped his neck, sir. There’s nothing we can do,” Tira said as she helped him to his feet. Jeryl only nodded. “I’ll help Ferriero, sir.” Tira jumped into Docherty’s seat and took over flight of the ship.

  “Shields down to twenty-seven percent. Hunters are in and out sir. Rail guns are empty.” The calm that Tira displayed as she called out the information was almost mind-numbing. Jeryl couldn’t comprehend it, how the hell was this kid so damn calm? What the hell was in her head that kept her this damn calm?

  “Mary, take over shields…move every ounce of power we can afford to shields. Docherty—”

  Fuck, Jeryl thought as he closed his eyes.

  “Sorry. Tira, if you have to, take us through the raiders, but find us a way out of here!”

  Jeryl sat, then clicked to Ashley’s HUD display and turned on her comm. “Ashley, we need to find a way out of here. We need at least a small hole to fly through, we’re not going to last much longer.” He said it quietly—it was only meant for her. No one else needed to know that he was scared shitless right now.

  “We’ll figure it out…What the hell is going on?”

  Jeryl looked at the screen as some on the bridge began cheering.

  “Holy shit…” He whispered as he saw what was happening. “I never thought I’d see this. Confederation ships just showed up and they’re hitting the Udenar.”

  “About fucking time!”

  “Yeah.”

  It was a miracle. The Confederation fleet flew in, a few dozen cruisers with their own fighters pouring out of them like water. They broke off into three groups and engaged the Udenar. Jeryl’s screen showed 270 Confederation ships in total.

 

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