The sub-controls beeped, informing Mach the bay door was fully open. He focused back on the task at hand. Scenes of previous floating wreckages flashed through his mind. He rubbed his clammy palms against the sides of his seat and launched the drone. It powered out of the bay, straight between two small asteroids, and out into open space. Mach engaged the port and rear thrusters and swept around in a wide diving arc, surveying the view and checking how well hidden the Intrepid was.
Once satisfied with his handling skills, he set a course for where the last two cloaked ships appeared. If any others were waiting along a similar trajectory, they’d have to show themselves to engage. Mach fired the drone’s two side-mounted lasers on an extended shot and thrust back and forth.
Both beams speared through the blackness, spraying tiny laser bolts in a hopeful pattern. A few minutes of this passed until the drone’s laser batteries were empty. Mach’s plan of fishing out the cloaked ships had resulted in no hits.
“At least you tried,” Sanchez said. “What next?”
“How about distracting one of those horns with our little kamikaze run?”
The big hunter smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
Mach looked back to the main viewscreen. The shield had almost faded to nothing on the right side of the CW formation. Most of the vanguard had crashed against it, weakening its effectiveness. Two small craft had got through and headed for the closest capital ship. Destroyers didn’t give either a chance to get close and battered them with quad lasers. Two brilliant white lights flashed across space when the internal bombs, planned to explode against the shield or a hull, detonated at a harmless distance.
Four more lactern cruisers uncloaked in front of the shield’s breach and fired their torpedoes in sequence at the same CW destroyer. Mach’s heart skipped a beat, and he winced.
The first two explosions took out the CW destroyer’s personal shield. The second two torpedoes punctured through its side and exploded, sending debris and fire spewing out of two ugly gouges in its hull. The ship’s power cut and it drifted lifelessly away from the fight, its thrusters dead, along with its crew.
Multiple lasers ripped the cruisers to shreds, but there was no sense of victory there; it was just the final part of the lactern game. The ruined cruisers joined the rest of the mangled wreckage and pieces of debris that floated between the two opposing forces.
Lassea cupped her hand over her mouth and took a sharp intake of breath. Nigel had stopped whatever he was doing and peered at the wrecked destroyer.
Beringer raised his smart-screen. “Babs, how you getting on with the Saviors?”
“Just got talking, give me a few minutes,” he replied.
Mach couldn’t afford to wait for a theory, and if he didn’t do something, this war was lost. He turned the drone in the direction of the capital ship at the center of the southern horn and gunned the engines to full power. This would do for an opening shot, but the CW was on the verge of needing something special if they didn’t start knocking out the Axis in greater numbers.
Babcock stood over the Saviors’ transparent cylinders in the cargo bay. Each thin vestan face had a pious expression as if they were experiencing a pleasant dream.
A small gamma generator softly hummed in the center, providing enough power to keep the tombs running for the foreseeable future. The thought of active minds in dead bodies sent a shiver down his spine.
Tulula had remained several meters away and leaned around a dark blue hover-truck. He’d never seen her act like this before, especially as Sanchez continued to rub off on her.
“Vestan channel eight,” she said. “I don’t need it.”
Babcock switched channels and raised his smart-screen. “This is Kingsley Babcock. Can you hear me?”
“Who is the vestan in our presence,” a low hollow voice said. “Identify yourself.”
Tulula tentatively stepped forward, glanced down at the closest cylinder, and spoke to them in their native tongue.
“For the sake of decorum, we’ll communicate in Salus Common,” the voice replied. “You may leave now.”
Tulula bowed her head and turned toward the exit. Babcock gently grabbed her arm. “Wait. I need you here. Nobody knows the Intrepid like you.”
“She doesn’t belong in our presence. Until we establish a new location—”
“You won’t have any location if you don’t listen to me,” Babcock said, unable to stop himself interrupting. The urgency of the situation outside demanded it. “Who am I speaking to?”
“You may call us Hanos. Are you threatening our existence?”
“No. Your old partners are. There’s a war raging outside, and unless you can give us an edge, I can’t guarantee any of us will survive.”
“The alternative to death is capture by the horans,” Tulula added.
A strange bubbling sound came through the speaker. “How do you expect us to help?”
“Do you know anything about lactern cloaking?” Babcock asked.
The bubbling again, as if they were having a private conversation. Babcock looked across to Tulula. She attempted to shrug, although it looked like more of a roll of the shoulders.
“You have strange thoughts, Tulula,” Hanos said. “Who is the man that invades your memories?”
Babcock blushed a little. If Tulula didn’t have black skin, he guessed she’d be doing the same over Sanchez, and decided it was best if they stayed on topic for the sake of brevity and lack of embarrassment. “I haven’t brought our engineer down for you to interrogate. Your species worked with the lacterns. Is there any way to detect their cloaking?”
“They use an array of particles unknown to us,” Hanos said. “Any solution would be guesswork. We don’t guess.”
“You must, if you pioneer tech. Otherwise, how do you create anything?”
Squid Three chirped and circled the cylinders.
“Planning and multiple result-based iterations. The base has to be solid.”
Babcock groaned. He wasn’t getting any support from Tulula, which was understandable to a certain extent, but all things considered, he needed a way to make the Saviors act with a little more urgency.
Threatening them seemed like the only course of action. Babcock crouched by the generator and activated its control pad.
“What are you doing?” Hanos said.
“If you can’t help us, we can’t help you. I’m switching you off.”
Tulula jerked forward but stopped herself. Babcock knew she’d been with the crew long enough to understand a bluff. It was part of Mach’s standard operating procedures.
The bubbling sound increased in volume and continued for several seconds.
“We know the code for two lactern particles,” Hanos said. “But there’s no guarantee they’re used in cloaking. You’ll have to reconfigure the scanner, but it means you’ll lose all capability to track horan and Commonwealth ships.”
Tulula tapped at her smart-screen. “They’ve sent me the codes. Let’s get moving.”
“You must become a Guardian, Tulula,” Hanos said. “No living vestan can see us. Who is the other vestan on board?”
“Sorry,” Tulula replied. “You’ll have to find someone else. I’ll ask Nigel and let you know.”
“You can’t deny our request.”
“She can, and we need to go.”
Babcock, Squid Three, and Tulula headed straight for the exit. They at least had a plan, which was better than what they had before they came to the cargo bay.
“Kingsley Babcock,” Hanos said.
Babcock paused and glanced over his shoulder at the cylinders. “That’s my name.”
“We will remember it.”
Mach aimed the drone’s lasers at the southern horn’s capital ship. He wasn’t far from being able to get off an effective shot but had to pass a destroyer. Sanchez and Beringer stood either side of him, willing the craft on. So far, the horans and lacterns hadn’t reacted to the approach. The main enemy ahead consumed th
eir attentions, or the drone hadn’t registered amongst the debris.
“Almost there,” Mach said. “Just another few seconds.”
“Go for the bridge,” Sanchez said. “It won’t break through, but it’ll give ‘em a hell of a shock.”
“Engines,” Beringer said. “You might get a lucky hit.”
Mach screwed his face and hovered his thumb over the fire button. He had to make this one count. Since Babcock had gone, four more cruisers had appeared and destroyed another CW destroyer.
The Axis was losing ships, but only the snide attack variety, and not the big powerful ones that were about to reach an effective firing range themselves.
A flash of light brightened the drone’s cockpit.
Two seconds later the feed cut to static.
Mach slammed his fist on the dashboard. “Damn it. How many of these things have they got?”
Another cruiser had uncloaked and made easy work of the drone with a torpedo. It cruised the length of the southern horn and vanished back into blackness.
The bridge hissed open. Babcock staggered in, leaned on the console to catch his breath, and dabbed a handkerchief on his forehead.
Tulula joined him, and Squid Three floated between them.
Babcock straightened his glasses. “We might have a solution.”
Mach sprang from the sub-controls and raced over. “What’s the situation?”
“We’ve got codes for two lactern particles,” Tulula said. “If I reconfigure the scanner, we might be able to detect cloaked ships.”
“Excellent,” Sanchez called over Mach’s shoulder.
“There’s a catch,” Babcock said. “If we try it, we lose our scanning ability.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Mach said. “Viewscreens will have to do.”
Lassea held up a thumb. “I won’t let ‘em out of my sight.”
Nigel loped over from the far side of the bridge. “That might not be a good idea.”
Mach frowned. “You’ve only been here five minutes. This is how we operate. If there’s a chance, we take it.”
“You misunderstand me, Captain,” Nigel replied and raised his bony black finger toward the scanner. “I think they tracked the drone’s path. Two destroyers are heading toward the asteroid belt.”
Mach looked up at the screen and confirmed it.
Oh crap.
“Everyone to their station!” Mach screamed. “Evasive maneuvers. Now!”
Chapter 24
Lassea piloted the Intrepid out of the asteroid belt and to a position behind the shield sphere. In the middle of the failing force field, Mach saw Tralis’ capital ship change course, steering the CW fleet away from the southern tip of the horan horn formation.
“Tralis!” Mach shouted over the comms. “Two destroyers incoming toward the asteroid side, high latitude. Do you copy, over?”
A female voice, one of Tralis’ communication officers, responded in the affirmative. “You did will to drag them out of formation, Captain Mach. We’ll take it from here.”
Babcock looked up from his console, eyes wide with alarm. “Mach, that’s crazy! They’ll be in firing range of the horan capital ships.” He gestured across his smart-screen and spoke directly to Tralis, giving them his data.
“CW fleet, this is Commander Tralis. Prepare to engage the Axis Combine. I’m sending attack vectors right now. We move in twenty seconds.”
Babcock shook his head.
“This is insane,” Lassea said.
“This is war,” Sanchez replied.
Mach stood up from his chair and surveyed the battlefield in front of him. The two destroyers that had moved to track their position were now being turned into fragments of trash by six vestan frigates, who had combined to make a small capital ship. Its sheer volume of laser ordnance overwhelmed the two horan destroyers.
Mach’s heart began to beat faster as he felt the energy of battle seep into his veins. Although he knew the two destroyers were disposable, a reuse on the Axis’ part to give the CWDF false confidence.
His smart-screen flashed with the receipt of the attack vectors.
The crew looked up at him from their positions around the bridge.
“What’s happening?” Lassea asked, swiveling in her pilot’s chair.
Mach read the instructions twice to make sure he didn’t misunderstand. “Full front attack on the east and west horns,” he said. The words dropping like a brick.
“They’ll be slaughtered,” Babcock said. “Did they not listen to a damned word I said?”
Mach was deep in thought. It was too late to stop the plans now; the vestan shield was breaking apart as the frigates were joining to make three capital ships, which joined with the CW’s four capital ships and a dozen destroyers. Some forty-plus smaller fighters launched out of the central capital craft and swarmed around like flies.
To Mach’s brief reckoning, they were outnumbered two to one.
“Tulula, ready the ion cannon. Sanchez, you and Nigel are on lasers. Adira, I want you on the torpedoes. Here’s the plan: Babcock, you carry on working with those codes. We needed them yesterday. Lassea, I want you to keep us behind Tralis’ ship until I tell you to split… when that happens, I want you to send us beneath the capital ship’s hull. That’ll bring us under the Axis’ horns. If the CWDF are going to engage like this, we might as well take advantage.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lassea said, visibly shaking.
The rest of the crew saluted Mach and got on with their tasks.
Mach watched the battle unfold on the viewscreen.
The great scorpion formation of the Axis was turning to face the bulk of the CWDF force, which was now splitting into an inverted V shape, with half a dozen destroyers and twenty fighters on each side of the V, and the capital ships contained in a solid defensive block at the base.
Not a bad tactic, Mach thought, considering the difficult circumstances.
The two forces moved into position and then it began.
Thousands of laser bolts filled the darkness. Sparks, debris, and bursts of flame erupted as the smaller fighter craft on each side engaged in graceful dogfighting, each of the vessels emitting plumes of maneuvering thrusters as they fought for supremacy.
From the east side of the battle, the Axis horn made up of the sleek horan destroyers, arched in toward the right flank of the CW formation, huge ships exchanging fire in rapid volleys.
“Babcock, how you getting on with that scanner upgrade?” Mach asked, knowing that the CWDF had left themselves vulnerable to attack through the center of their V formation.
“Ready to patch in a few seconds,” Babcock said. “Though there are no guarantees.”
“The north and south horns are shifting to the center,” Adira said, alarm starting to etch into her voice as the right CWDF flank began to crumble under the sheer weight of numbers.
The Axis capital ships were now getting closer to firing range, but so were the CWDF and vestan ships. “Lassea, get us out of here. Dive!”
“I’m on it,” she said, inputting the commands and shifting the Intrepid below the main bulk of the CWDF force. Above them, two vestan capital ships split apart to allow the first volley of the Axis’ central attack pass through them without damage.
“Adira, I want you on that ion cannon, ready on my say-so.”
She nodded, focused on the holoscreen in front of her, which would soon become useless once Babcock added his new software.
As Lassea piloted the Intrepid down below and out of the way of the main fighting, Mach saw with horror the entire right flank break apart. The Axis’ eastern tip pierced through the defense. Further behind, the whiptail was shifting around.
“Okay, uploading,” Babcock said. “Ready to scan in three… two….”
The holodisplays in front of everyone’s consoles blinked out. The overlay map on the viewscreen followed, leaving them with just visuals, which, given the fight around them, meant they could barely see anything. Apart from a patc
h of dark space leading in a column from the main body of the horan formation.
“Scanning now,” Babcock said.
A pair of CWDF fighters buzzed by their position just a few dozen meters away, chasing a trio of horan ships.
“Sanchez, now!” Mach said.
The hunter was already on it, jabbing a finger at the gesture controls. The Intrepid’s gamma engines hummed loudly as the energy diverted to the laser battery.
A pair of red beams flashed on the viewscreen, taking out two of the horan fighters. The pair of CWDF craft quickly took out the third, but just as Mach was about to let out a cheer, the group of destroyers on the west horn tip blasted them into pieces.
“Shit!” Adira said firing the ion cannon toward the destroyers, but the range was too far.
“Easy,” Mach said. “Conserve the energy until my orders. Lassea, get us the fuck out of here. Head lower and bring us round toward the rear.”
“Wait! Babcock said. “I don’t know, but it’s working! Look.” He made a quick gesture and sent the results of the scan from his console up on the main screen.
In the dark columnar patch leading from the central horan formation were eight more lactern frigates in a tight square formation, heading right for the group of CWDF capital ships. The software, picking up on their stealth particles, outlined their shapes.
“Forward the data to Tralis’ group,” Mach said.
“Lassea, change of plan, bring us to the rear and above the formation. We’ll sweep down. Adira, I want you to aim for the front ship. Take its system down and—”
“We’ll have ourselves a logjam,” Adira said, smiling.
Mach gritted his teeth and sat down as Lassea spun the craft and engaged its thrusters to send it to the rear of the CWDF line, and then thrust again to alter their vector until they were now floating high above with a view down below.
It was a mess.
The Terminal War: A Carson Mach Space Opera Page 20
