by M. D. Cooper
Jason replied.
Jessica complied, and in sequence with the other fighters, applied a 30g burn toward the moon below. She didn’t even feel a single g on her body, and the fighter spun and pivoted like it was on rails.
Amazing, she thought to herself.
The other pilots were also putting the ships through their paces, and Jessica watched the squadron dance and spin as they began to break into a slow polar orbit. Their patrol path called for a half-dozen polar loops before slowing to hold position five-thousand kilometers above the south pole, creating a buffer between the pirate Padre’s fleet and the Intrepid and its fleet.
The moon below was a welcoming blue and green, with white cumulous clouds dotting its skies. A thick layer of water vapor high in the world’s stratosphere blurred the surface, but she could still make out oceans, green lands, deserts, and icy poles.
Worlds like this one—distant from their star and orbiting massive jovians—were not self-sustaining. The less-luminous light of their host star did not impart enough energy to the world to keep it warm with a more natural atmosphere. Combined with the gravity of its parent planet constantly tearing at its skies, the world would ultimately lose most of its air. It would take constant upkeep to remain habitable.
Still, for people who loved green grass and open spaces, it was hard to beat the real deal. Jessica found that she still missed Athabasca, and though it had been nice to visit Victoria from time to time, its brown forests and fields never sated her desire for a more terrestrial world.
She used her sensors to probe the world as much as she could. The mission report held true. No settlements had been constructed, but the moon wasn’t uninhabited either. The terraforming crews were still there; her dataset told her it was mostly biologists monitoring their work. A flotilla of tugs and cargo ships hung in low orbit where they had taken refuge from their work constructing a space elevator after the battle broke out between the Bollam’s World Space Force and the pirates.
With any luck, this would be over soon and they could go back to their tasks unharmed.
Carson’s squadron dropped into a polar orbit, passing the Black Death as they did a quick loop around Fierra to reach the Intrepid’s elevation.
Four other squadrons patrolled the southern hemisphere, and on their final loop, Jessica’s squadron adjusted their trajectory to fit into their place in the pattern—when their final deceleration was interrupted by an exclamation from Cary.
Jessica’s scan confirmed Cary’s words. Her fighter was moving like a dog trying to screw a football, still travelling at over fifty-thousand kilometers per-hour.
Cordy said.
Jessica laughed at the humor. It wasn’t possible to vomit in a shoot suit, but that didn’t stop a person’s body from trying. The data from her scan showed Cary’s Arc-6 now spinning wildly as attitude control thrusters fired inaccurately, working off bad data as they tried to right the ship. Cary would be experiencing forces over thirty gs in constant, random vectors.
Cary groaned and then signaled affirmative.
Her fighter ceased its sporadic motion and settled into a relatively consistent vector—one aimed straight for the pirate fleet.
The squadron’s combat net was silent for a moment.
ENGAGEMENT
STELLAR DATE: 10.29.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid, Orbiting Fierra (6Mj Jovian)
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Sera waved a greeting as she walked past Amanda, who was now ensconced in the bridge’s foyer and followed the corridor past the conference room to the bridge itself.
She stood in the room’s entrance and stared for a full minute.
The Intrepid’s bridge was more like a colony command and control center than simply the helm and ship duty stations most vessels possessed.
For starters, it was almost a quarter the volume of Sabrina; nearly thirty meters across, and twice as many deep. A large holo tank dominated the center of the room, and beside it stood Tanis, frowning at what she saw. Surrounding her, in concentric circles, were rows and rows of consoles, smaller holo displays, and department liaisons and automatons.
It bustled like a beehive with its queen at the center.
Tanis looked up and her and locked eyes with her.
Tanis threaded her way through the consoles and bridge personnel, moving toward a doorway on Sera’s right. They stepped through the portal into a small, utilitarian office. Behind a desk covered in holo displays sat Captain Andrews.
She caught him glance at her body, something that certainly understandable given the shimmering silver skin tone she had selected for the day.
Helen gave the mental equivalent of a snort in response.
“Good afternoon,” he addressed both women. “Tanis, did you see the latest message from the AST ships?”
“I did,” the general replied with a chuckle. “Claiming that they own this ship due to late interest payments on loans is pretty weak—especially given that the loans, small as they were, were handled through the GSS, not the Sol Space Federation.
“Well, they did absorb the GSS before they shut it down,” Sera said. “It was part of an attempt to stop
the exodus of the brightest and most adventurous people from Sol. After you left, Sol started to get pretty stagnant. People had no drive or ambition. Even their birthrate almost hit zero.”
“Trust me,” Tanis said while shaking her head. “That trend started long before we left.”
“Either way,” Sera replied with a shrug. “They wrote off all their GSS-related debt millennia ago.”
“That’s good,” Captain Andrews replied. “The only thing worse than enemy fleets chasing you across the stars are bureaucrats who want their money.”
“It seems they’ll even chase you across millennia,” Sera added.
“Do you have the details on that write-off?” Tanis asked. “It would be nice to send a response for them to chew on. Keeping the dialog going never hurts.”
“I’m pulling up what we have on Sabrina,” Sera said as she accessed her ship’s archives. “Here it is. After the breakup of the SSF and the eventual formation of the AST, the new government performed a century-long audit of all the assets and debts they possessed.
“Somewhere along the line, someone realized that the government had an ownership stake in several dozen colonies, and colony ships, that no one had heard from in nearly a millennium. They didn’t like the potential liability, so they simply wrote off the whole lot and passed legislation that any property the AST would have owned, or had a lien, on was transferred to whoever possessed it at the time of the law’s passing.”
The captain ran a hand through his hair. “How…indiscreet of them.”
Tanis laughed, and Sera passed the relevant information to her.
“Great, I’ll have the comm officer organize a response and send it to our friends out there. Should shut them up for a bit.”
Tanis turned to Sera, her expression carefully schooled. “You sent your message. The captain and I would finally like to—ah, shit.”
“What is it?” Sera asked as Tanis turned toward door.
“One of the fighters is having a malfunction and heading straight for Padre’s ships.”
They rushed out to the main holo tank, which already displayed the situation at the Fierra’s south pole.
“It’s the Black Death,” a duty officer supplied. “One of their Arc-6s is acting up; they’re trying a system restore from crystal backup.”
“And if it doesn’t finish in time?” Sera asked.
“Then they’ll pass right through the middle of Padre’s formation,” Tanis replied.
“Sorry, my story will have to wait for another time, this could be the start of things,” Sera looked from Tanis to Captain Andrews. “I need to get out there.”
She could see Tanis and the captain exchange thoughts over the Link before Tanis nodded.
FIRESTORM
STELLAR DATE: 10.29.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Near Kithari, South of Fierra
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Jessica goosed her fighter to match Cary’s vector with several quick burns she barely noticed.
C’mon, Cary, Jessica thought to herself. Get that thing fixed.
She counted down the seconds it should take for a system restore to complete and Cary’s silence continued after her count completed. The pilot did not come back on the squadron’s combat net.
Another minute passed and Rock’s voice broke the silence.
The pilots silently signaled their acknowledgement, coordinated their flight paths, and selected targets from the five corvettes closing in on Cary.
Jessica nodded to herself and signaled her acknowledgement of the order.
The relative velocity between Cary’s fighter and the five pirate corvettes put intercept in twelve minutes. Jessica kept an eye on her NSAI’s estimation of lethal range—just under ten thousand kilometers—which they would reach in five minutes.
Space close to Fierra was full of dust from mined asteroids and no small amount of swirling gas from the jovian it orbited. It was far from empty, and a dust, or hydrogen cloud could make all the difference when it came to striking a lethal blow.
Jessica checked the updated scan. Though the five corvettes had accelerated rapidly to reach Cary, they were now breaking, attempting to match v to snatch her up.
The maneuver made little sense to Jessica. With the rest of the squadron surrounding Cary, the pirate ships would become stationary targets—relatively speaking—if they attempted to grab the disabled fighter.
Rock seemed to have the same thought.
They acknowledged the order and eight Arc-6 fighters accelerated toward the pirate corvettes.
They split into two formations, each targeting one of the pirate vessels and none firing until they were well within beam range. It was deemed best to save their power for maximum effectiveness in this stellar soup.
The corvettes were still slowing to match v with the rest of the squadron, and their prey, Cary’s ship, when the eight Arc-6s flashed past them, laying withering beam fire on the two lead vessels.
Jessica spun her engine and applied full thrust, the now pointless readout telling her that without the dampeners she would be crushed under a 100gs of acceleration. Scan showed that the enemy corvettes had returned fire at the fighters, a salvo of over seventy beams, and two rail slugs.
The slugs knocked their target Arcs around, but none of the fighters showed any damage.
Jessica sent an affirmative response, feeling giddy as the adrenaline coursed through her body. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. The fighters slowed, and then stopped before their engines drove them back toward the pirate corvettes. Almost lazily, they
drifted over their enemy, shrugging off the beams and rails before dropping directly into the stream of gamma rays that flowed at light speed from the AP engines.
It took conscious effort to drop her ship into the engine wash—normally such action would result in certain death, but the stasis shields brushed off the luminal impacts with ease.
In unison, five of the eight fighters lanced streams of protons into the pirate ship’s engines.
As predicted, the beams penetrated the antimatter containment and the pirate ships exploded in tremendous displays of plasma and shrapnel.
Rock gave the order for the eight fighters to form up with the rest of the squadron. Jessica adjusted her relative v to zero with a quick burst from her AP engine.
she commented to Jerry.
* * * * *
“That’s amazing,” Tanis commented from beside the bridge’s main holo tank. “It’s like the enemy wasn’t even firing.”
“It’s a game changer, alright,” Sanderson observed.
“The bulk of their fleet is engaging,” Tanis cautioned as the tank lit up with an explosion of energy surrounding Black Death’s position. Nearly two hundred corvettes and four cruisers focused every beam and railgun in their fleet on the fighter squadron’s tight cocoon around Cary’s disabled vessel.
She tasted blood and realized that she was biting her lip.
Angela had no response, though concern flowed from her into Tanis’s mind.
