Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades

by Randolph Lalonde

  “What’s your purpose here?” Alice asked, the only question that would come to mind at the moment.

  “Disable as many of the ship’s systems as I can from engineering,” Juno said. “That’s what I was sent here to do, and I still can from this cabin.” She held up her comm unit and activated a sequence on it with her free hand. Alice’s suit detected a power build up coming from the woman’s communication unit and realized that she’d fashioned a small electromagnetic pulse bomb.

  Without taking a second to think, Alice sprinted across the room and pushed Juno into the mass recycler then activated it mentally. A multitude of mulching teeth and molecular reclamation tools set to work at a frightening pace to recycle Juno and her comm unit as Alice shut the thick insulated door. A power surge marked the detonation of the improvised electromagnetic pulse device on the controls for the recycler, but there was no outer effect.

  “Gor blimey, you recycled her!” Nesh exclaimed.

  Alice was as surprised as anyone else. “I thought I could contain the blast in the machine. I didn’t think it would try to recycle her. These things have safety measures so they don’t process living things, don’t they?”

  “Not industrial ones like this,” Nesh laughed. “I know, I shouldn’t be laughing, but, God!”

  “You’re right, that’s the only safe place to set off an EMP in the room, but you still recycled her ass,” Timmerman chucked as he opened the lid to the settling machine. Red lights blinking on the recycler’s display indicated that something had gotten stuck, and Alice immediately regretted looking. The mass recycler had strands of Juno’s vacsuit stuck in its mulching teeth, and there was just enough evidence of the woman left to tell the rest of the tale.

  Officer Timmerman closed the lid and crossed himself. “This story’ll live on, I’m sure of that. Guess she shouldn’t have called our commanding officer a child.”

  “Sergeant Valent,” Finn said through Alice’s comm. “We just detected a minor pulse down there, everything all right?”

  “We caught our traitor,” Alice replied.

  “And? Are they in custody? Sensors are dodgy in that section. There’s some kind of interference.”

  “We took care of her,” Alice said, deactivating the counter surveillance chip laying on the deck at her feet.

  “Are you taking her to the brig for interrogation?” Frost asked, interjecting from the bridge.

  Alice closed the lid of the mass recycler and thought for a moment before answering. Her officers were watching her, hanging on what she’d say next, she assumed. “Not enough of her left for interrogation, Sir. Sorry. Resuming normal security operations.”

  The channel to the bridge closed and Alice couldn’t help but look at the recycler and shake her head. “Well, that was a learning experience.”

  CHAPTER 43

  All Or Nothing

  Minh-Chu watched as three of the Warlord’s missile pods, launched into place long minutes before, fired hundreds of small electromagnetic pulse flak missiles at the imposing Order of Eden destroyer. His fighter wing reduced their power output levels, just as they’d practiced in simulation, and fired their own EMP flack missiles, adding hundreds of their own projectiles to the impending display.

  The Barricade’s countermeasures came to life, small rapid-fire cannons sweeping their fire across the thousands of incoming targets, and only one of its flak cannons belched exploding pods of magnetically charged shrapnel ahead of the ship. It all worked in their favour, it was all noise, and there was so much to fire at that the Barricade’s green crew didn’t know to focus on the five incoming fighters instead of trying to repel the incoming missiles. “I couldn’t believe the intelligence the first time I saw it, and I’m still having trouble swallowing it,” Minh-Chu said.

  “What’s that, Ronin?” Jake asked from where he and his squad were pressed into the small personnel carrier compartment affixed to the bottom of Minh-Chu’s Uriel fighter.

  Minh-Chu activated his antimatter projectile cannons and began powering up the disruptor beam emitter mounted on the front of his fuselage. “They really are sending destroyers across the Iron Head Nebula with green skeleton crews,” Minh-Chu replied. The clash of exploding micro missiles against the forward shields of the Barricade made for an impressive fireworks display. He easily guided his fighter around the narrow flak cannon fire. The destroyer had forty such cannons, and they should have all been firing. Minh could only assume that they didn’t have the staff aboard to operate them. “This is going to be the biggest piece of candy anyone has ever taken from a baby,” he said before addressing the other four fighters in his formation. “Dump the rest of your electro mag missiles onto their hangar shields, I’m going to punch through.” He spared a glance from his instruments to admire the jagged front of the ship, with edges that spread out from its general rectangular structure that looked like forward-facing teeth. There were heavily shielded weapons, emitter systems and receiver arrays built into the ends of those arms. Between four of the main emitter arms was their target: a hangar deck made to launch state of the art Violent Encounter Resolution fighters, the new craft Regent Galactic was building for the Order Fleet.

  “My scanners are giving me no good readings in that direction, there’s so much electrical and flak garbage in the way, they’ve gotta be blind by now,” replied Tempest, the pilot flying the Uriel on Minh’s port side. “And we’ll be landing on their deck using eyes only thanks to our mess. We’re all crazy.”

  “Mad as escaped mentals,” Moira McFadden replied from where she was, in the small troop compartment attached to Minh’s fighter. “Can’t believe I’m going along with this.”

  “Counting down from eleven seconds,” Minh-Chu interrupted as he watched the planned path of the stealthed antimatter mines from the Warlord close in on the Barricade. The pair of corvettes was just coming out of their wormhole beside it, and the cargo hauler wouldn’t be far behind.

  Minh-Chu’s shields registered a graze from two of the beam weapons mounted along the sides of the destroyer. The front of the ship lit up as it opened fire on all five of the Samurai Squadron fighters in his formation, sending suppressive energy fire in broad arcs around the ship.

  “Antimatter explosion number one in three,” Minh-Chu said, realizing that he was gripping his controls harder only as he felt the white-knuckled pressure on his fingers. “Two,” he counted. rechecking his distance. His fighters were right where they should be, any closer and their shields would not protect them. “One.”

  The first antimatter mine burst directly beneath the fore section of the Barricade, and there was a heartbeat’s time when the antimatter drifted freely in the cold void before it made contact with tiny particles of matter clinging to the vessels’ shields. The explosion radiated outward, bathing everything for thousands of kilometres in waves of light.

  “-won’t have a chance for our sensors to recover before the second one hits,” Tempest said as her comms came back online. “Predicted activation in three.” Minh-Chu watched as his sensors started reporting shadows, the barest of gravitational measurements pointing out the two corvettes and the destroyer.

  “Two,” Tempest said over their scratchy communications channel. Minh-Chu hoped that the second mine was in position, then saw a glimpse of it, or what he was sure must have been it. Its cloaking had failed, and he watched as its powerful chemical thruster blasted it across the black of space.

  “One,” Minh-Chu and Tempest said at the same time as the deadly self-propelled mine finished its relatively short trip between the pair of corvettes. It exploded with the full fury of the first antimatter mine directly behind them, further away from Samurai Squadron than the first. He couldn’t see the pair of Samurai Squadron fighters that were set up behind the wormhole, but if they were where they should be, they would be far from harm. He wouldn’t be able to cut through all the noise in the area to check, and they were supposed to be shut down so they would be difficult to detect, meaning he w
ouldn’t know their fate until it was time to escape the area. That wouldn’t be for some time.

  Minh-Chu’s sensors recovered within seconds of the detonation, and he checked his people first to find that two of them had suffered minor damage, and that all the boarding team members checked out fine. All pilots reported ready, and he could hear a couple of them laughing, and Tempest saying, “Corvette One and Corvette Two’s shields are fried, they’ve taken minor damage from the torpedoes. Time for us to split off, Ronin.”

  “Stand by with your payload, execute defensive manoeuvres while I make my run,” Minh-Chu said as he verified that the Barricade’s shields were almost down across the ship, but they were starting to recharge. “Time for a real show.”

  “Better hurry, Ronin, that disruptor cannon’s capacitor module is glowing,” Moira said from the bottom side of his hull.

  “Do we have cover?” Minh-Chu asked as he glanced at several mission counters. The one he was really looking forward to was just dropping to zero, and the Warlord revealed itself. Its antimatter enhanced ion thruster pods and the new main engine at the rear of the dark hulled ship powered the vessel towards the corvettes. Big bore launcher holes released self-propelled electromagnetic pulse mines that pushed off in several different directions. The front of the ship lit up as its massive stationary railguns fired in quick succession and hatches opened revealing rapid-fire electromagnetic pulse guns. “We’re here, Hun,” Ashley replied. “You go make an impression on that destroyer, guys.”

  The mines already set up in the area began firing short-range missiles and draining their power cells as they fired beam weapons at the pair of corvettes. The area was alight with the deadly weapons they’d brought to defeat the Order ships. “Aye, aye,” Minh-Chu said as he thrust towards the front of the destroyer. The first few shots at his Uriel fighter came when he was only five thousand kilometres away, and they were wide of the mark. By the time he closed to two thousand, anti-fighter rounds pounded on his energy shields as though they were the hammer and he was the anvil. “Okay, they seem to have some kind of reserve scanners. A gunner has a lock on me.” Both his port side fore thrusters took damage before he reached his target, a place right between the four major arms reaching out from the front of the ship.

  “Just get the door open,” Jake said.

  Minh’s targeting computer locked on to the main hangar doors of the Barricade and he fired his disruptor beam weapon, the capacitors humming loudly as they fed the white beam, and a neat square was etched deeply into the forward hangar doors. Minh-Chu tried to ignore the hits his shields were taking from the gunner aboard the enemy ship, and pulled the trigger on his antimatter enhanced auto cannons, marking a violent line of damage across the front of the hangar doors ahead. He fired another pair of bursts and a section of the hangar doors large enough for his fighter to enter exploded outward. “Not bad, almost looks like I used a plasma cutter,” Minh-Chu muttered to himself. His damaged thruster pods ripped free of their articulated arms, escaping in separate directions and sending his fighter spinning towards the front of the destroyer.

  “Oh crap,” Jake said from beneath the fighter.

  “Yup, dead, we’re going to splat agains’ the front of tha’ thing,” Moira added.

  “Shhh, no backseat driving,” Minh-Chu said as he fought to compensate for the missing thruster pods and get the fighter clear of the blast radius. He was down to backup power and what was left in the shield capacitors, and those started draining as soon as the destroyer’s anti-fighter guns got a shot at him.

  “Wish I believed in the Almighty right about now, would love a prayer,” Moira quipped as Minh-Chu manually fought for control of his fighter’s spin. The gunner seemed to lose his bead for several seconds, and he was able to right his fighter. Pinging against his lower aft thruster pods was a clear indication that the gunner on the Barricade had found his mark again, and he meant to pick the wings off his fly.

  “Oh, dear God,” Moira said. “I know this plan is crazy, but please grant us grace so we don’t die like idio-“

  Her prayer was interrupted as a large chunk of armour plating from the destroyer’s hangar bumped against the trooper carrier compartment. It couldn’t be helped, and Minh knew it wouldn’t cause serious damage. “Ronin!” Jake shouted, alarmed.

  “Don’t worry, a little filler and paint and she’ll be good,” Minh-Chu replied. At long last, he closed on the opening on the destroyer’s hangar doors and flew straight in, firing his thrusters hard to decelerate and land on the deck. To his surprise, the landing was soft and graceful. “Welcome to the hangar deck. The vacuum outside is a balmy twelve hundred degrees, but it’s cooling fast folks, so get your kit and get in gear.”

  Two Uriels came in right behind him. They had troops to drop off as well, and would be leaving. Minh-Chu rechecked the condition of his fighter and shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m writing my bird off for the rest of this mission. I’m joining up with Jake and his people. Take over, Tempest.”

  “I hear you, good luck.”

  * * *

  Alice entered the bridge and took her place at her station. It felt strange to have a post on the bridge to return to at all, but someone from security had to be there when they could. Her people were posted strategically around the ship, so she had no reason to wander the corridors. A quick check of the mission status screen confirmed what she already knew from being directly connected to the ship – that Jake and his team had landed safely aboard the destroyer.

  It was something she needed to confirm; Alice needed to know that they’d made the perilous journey there and that Jake’s fate was back in his own hands. She loved Minh-Chu like an uncle, but that didn’t relieve the uneasiness she felt at her father being carted through dangerous space in a tiny trooper carrier compartment on the underside of a Uriel fighter. With her father’s location confirmed, she felt comfortable disconnecting from the ship’s computer and using her station as well as her comm unit to keep in touch. The noise level from the combat operation was rising by the minute as everyone followed the master plan, and it was starting to feel like there was pressure building in her head as more voices, more signals, joined the racket.

  Alice sighed at the sudden silence in her mind and focused on what was happening on the bridge.

  “Port aft shields down to twelve percent,” announced Finn.

  Ashley guided the Warlord into a quick roll crossing the front axis of the three corvettes that revealed themselves and began pounding the ship’s shields. Alice could hear the click and scrape of their large munitions launchers firing as they were reloaded with mobile missile magazines that sped away from the Warlord in all directions, turning towards their enemy targets and rapid firing hundreds of deadly projectiles per second.

  Alice’s station was the most boring place on the bridge, with her captured crewmember marked with a crossed X. The crewmembers she had marked for high scrutiny were circled on the ship interior map, and she could see exactly what they were doing at the damage control stations, which wasn’t much at the moment. They weren’t even talking to each other.

  “Hard shunt power from reactors five and six to the aft shield array,” Frost said. “Need to recharge those quick. Any good analysis on what they’re firing?”

  “Their main weapon is a complicated energy burst cannon with some kind of component in the beam that turns some of the power they’re transmitting into solids. The part that’s damaging us isn’t travelling near the speed of light, but it’s energy. Never seen anything like it,” Kadri reported. “I’ve got no counter.”

  It took a moment for Alice to realize that the Warlord wasn’t fighting the corvettes that had come through the wormhole, something she’d overlooked while she was connected to the ship computer because she was focusing on internal security. They were fighting ships that had just decloaked and entered the fight, ships that had been watching all along.

  “That’s not human technology,” Frost said. “Give me all th
e power you can for forward shielding. We have to destroy all three of the new corvettes.”

  Alice flinched at the sound of a weapon rapidly impacting the hull several times. Her security screen marked several cabins in the lower aft section of the ship as a hazard.

  “Small hull fracture and damage from a disintegration weapon,” David announced. “We have a steward cabin breached, the adjacent hallway is open to radiation, and supply compartment twenty-four C is breached. Sealing the section off.”

  “Good, now focus on forward shields a minute,” Finn told David. They worked at their stations quickly, diverting power from several reactors to the forward grid. After a few seconds of artful rerouting, the forward section of the Warlord’s grid was nearly overloaded.

  A status shift in Alice’s station alerted her and she read the report aloud. “A damage control team is reporting they can seal those breaches from the inside using a liquid ergranian patch.”

  “They’re clear to go,” Finn replied, still busy with his duties.

  “Ordering them in, then,” Alice said as she did so from her post.

  “Ash, let’s cannon them down,” Frost said, activating the manual tactical controls for the forward-facing railguns. The weapons were well beyond what anyone would expect to see on a ship in their class. When the railguns running under the bridge of the Warlord fired, the crew could feel it throughout most of the ship, and there were whole sections of decks dedicated to the deadly projectile weapons. From where she was sitting, Alice could see the railguns were loaded with special warheads that were all slug for the back half, with a shaped explosive at the front.

  Ashley’s reply was expressed through the movements of the Warlord, as she flipped the ship end-over-end and turned so the nose of the fighting vessel pointed at the three strange corvettes. One of them hadn’t fired since Alice arrived on the bridge, and it was venting atmosphere. The other two had their broadsides facing the Warlord, firing weapons that seemed to require wide glowing emitters instead of a contained barrel.