by M. D. Cooper
On the holo, one of Myla’s ships suddenly winked out, and Katrina pulled up an optical view. It showed the ship’s shields flare, then a beam tearing through the MDF destroyer, flames and atmosphere pouring out of the holes in its hull. A moment later, something exploded within the ship, turning it into a cloud of shrapnel.
“Fuck,” Katrina whispered.
“Tracking twenty RMs,” Scan announced.
“That’s a fortune in missiles,” Jordan said, scowling at the holotank.
Katrina could feel rage overtaking her. “That fool. Firing RMs at close-range from known sources on known targets…”
Sure enough, scan showed ten of the RMs wink out before they even reached the midway point. Moments later, two more were destroyed.
“Relativistic missiles are a fucking waste if they don’t have time to hit relativistic speeds,” Katrina muttered as the remaining eight missiles reached their targets and detonated successfully.
Myla had targeted the enemy’s light cruisers, and three missiles hit one, the explosions clouding the ship. When scan could get a clear reading, they saw the vessel’s shields had failed—though it was otherwise undamaged.
The remaining five missiles struck another cruiser, the initial two disabling its shields, and the final three obliterating the ship.
A small consolation for such a large expenditure of ordnance.
A moment later, beams from the MDF ships lanced through the void, striking the ship without shields, holing it thoroughly. Katrina nodded with satisfaction as it began to spin from the flames and atmosphere shooting into space.
During the exchange, the BWSF ships had not sat idle. Another five of Myla’s destroyers were now drifting hulks, and two of Greg’s had joined them.
Acknowledgements came back a few seconds later, and Katrina was glad Myla hadn’t sent back a verbal message. It would have prompted her to give the woman a brutal tongue lashing.
Despite the losses, the engagement had created the desired result. The enemy ships were close to Kora’s equatorial plane. They’d pass around the planet, expecting to see Teegarten in one place, only to find it in another.
Hopefully.
Katrina sent a signal via relay to the Verisimilitude, which lay within the planet’s clouds, hovering over its southern pole. Four MDF ships and a dozen canton frigates were in position with it, a similar grouping to those in position with the Castigation in the clouds over the north pole.
Katrina hoped he would follow the plan. Myla had already wasted over ten percent of the MDF fleet to take out less than one percent of the enemy’s.
If Demy couldn’t light those planet pusher’s engines, even the fallback plan would be at serious risk.
The BWSF ships closed within two light-seconds of the planet, and Katrina saw their formation split to come around both sides.
Jordan called out orders, and the Castigation surged out of Kora’s clouds, beams and rails firing into the enemy formation. Jordan was following orders to the letter, targeting the destroyers, trying to create as much confusion as possible. The other ships in their flight followed suit, coordinating their fire with the Castigation’s, destroying three enemy ships in the initial salvo.
Jordan was engaging new targets as the Verisimilitude and Flight Five joined the fray. The concentrated fire, aimed at the BWSF destroyers and not their light cruisers, took out ship after ship on the left flank, driving the enemy back over the western side of the planet.
Flights four and five boosted toward one another, crossing over Kora’s equator, still harrying the enemy ships, which were firing back—some shots between ships at ranges as close as five thousand kilometers.
“Fucking fuck!” Jordan cursed as a kinetic salvo hammered the Castigation, overwhelming one of the shield umbrellas. “Rotate us,” she called out to helm.
“On it,” Helm replied as the ship spun on its axis, putting the damaged shields on the far side of the ship as more weapons fire struck the Castigation. Most of it was coming from a pair of enemy light cruisers that were advancing on Flight Four while the destroyers peeled away.
Sam announced.
Katrina was about to order Jordan to pull the Castigation back into the planet’s clouds when a salvo of missiles struck one of the BWSF cruisers, taking out its dorsal shields. She saw the Verisimilitude on approach, the cruiser firing all twenty of its forward beams, cutting the enemy cruiser nearly in half before turning its guns on the other attacker. The remaining BWSF light cruiser altered course and fell back behind the protective shield of the destroyers.
Katrina glanced at Jordan, and both women breathed a sigh of relief. They’d done it. The enemy was passing around the western side of Kora.
Now it was all down to Demy.
BURN AND FEINT
STELLAR DATE: 02.07.8512 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Castigation
REGION: Kora, Midditerra System
While the BWSF fleet sped around the western side of Kora, the Castigation and Flight Four passed over the planet’s southern pole to see Teegarten Station angled with the lower end of its spire pointed at the Bollam’s World ships.
At the bottom of the spire, the two FGT planet pushers—a name Katrina knew to be more hyperbole than fact—were in position to push the station away, with their engines aimed at the approaching Boller fleet.
But the great cones were dark; neither the AP drives, nor the fusion burners were emitting any signs of life.
Katrina didn’t hold any hopes for the AP engines—getting enough antimatter onto the ships in short order would be a risky proposition in and of itself.
But she’d hoped the fusion drives would work.
Katrina was shocked at the vehemence in the diminutive woman’s voice, but she supposed that answer was better than ‘no fucking way’.
The Verisimilitude and Flight Five were passing over the north pole, and Katrina signaled them to keep firing on the BWSF fleet. They had to keep the enemy focused on ships and not the station.
As the two flights kept firing on the Bollers, the enemy responded, launching waves of missiles and kinetics at the MDF and canton starships.
“Stars, we can’t take much more,” Jordan said as the Castigation registered another shield failure.
Katrina had seen planet pushers burn before, as the Intrepid had used them in the Kapteyn’s Star System on several occasions. Even so, it was always a sight to behold.
“Mother fucking fuck,” Jordan whispered, as their view of Teegarten Station was completely obscured by what could only be described as star-eclipsing light.
The torches coming off the planet pushers were so bright that over fifteen degrees of scan was blinded by them. The engines continued to increase their burn, pouring plasma into space, the wash directed squarely at the approaching BWSF fleet.
It was a churn and burn unlike any Katrina had ever seen.
The enemy ships began to veer off course, pulling up and away from the jets of raw energy pouring off the pushers.
But many of them were not fast enoug
h.
A dozen enemy ships were vaporized before they could even alter vector, and a hundred more lost shields before they could pull away.
“Sam, give the station’s guns targeting data, there’s no way they’ll be able to see through that plume.”
The station’s railguns began to fire, joining the Midditerra ships as they pummeled every BWSF vessel whose shields had failed.
As the MDF and canton ships opened fire, there were still over a hundred enemy ships in the plasma wash. Then Demy pulled off the impossible, and ignited the antimatter pion drives, spraying gamma rays out of the pushers, exciting the plasma further and slamming it into the remaining Boller ships.
“Now that’s how you wipe out an enemy fleet,” Katrina said with a wide grin, as the surviving BWSF ships began to break apart into smaller formations, boosting stellar north and south.
There were still over one hundred fifty with working engines and navigation, but many of those had weakened shields. They would be ripe targets for flights one through three, which were beginning to come around Kora’s eastern side, bringing heavy fire to bear on the remains of the BWSF fleet.
Katrina watched the Bollam’s World ships, wondering if they would dare come back around for another attack. They’d suffered terrible losses, but so had the MDF, and the trick with the pushers would not work a second time.
With the canton vessels, Katrina’s force had numbered a hundred, but there were now fewer than fifty Midditerra ships operating under their own power.
As Katrina was evaluating options, the planet pushers shut down their engines, and scan could once again observe Teegarten Station as it moved away from Kora.
The heavy thrust had caused visible damage to two of the rings, and a trail of debris from torn cargo nets and other scaffolding lay in the station’s wake. Teegarten was saved, but it might still end up as scrap.
“Did we win?” Jordan asked with a rueful laugh.
“I have—” Katrina began, but Sam interrupted her.
“Pass it to me,” Katrina instructed.
Sam complied, and the moment he did, she identified the origins from the message header.
“Troy…” She could have wept with joy, knowing that he was out there, close enough to send her a signal. A part of her had written him and the Voyager off, assuming some terrible fate had befallen them and she’d never see either again. But he was alive.
If Troy was alive, then the ship was likely with him.
“Troy?” Jordan asked, and Katrina realized that she’d said the name aloud.
“A friend,” she replied while decrypting the message.
Katrina sucked in a deep breath as she pulled up the data on the main BWSF attack force.
“Shit,” she whispered, feeling weak in the knees.
“What is it?” Jordan asked.
Katrina passed the data to Sam and he put it up on the main holo.
Sam’s voice was filled with uncharacteristic levels of worry.
“I know,” Katrina replied, turning to Jordan, whose face was ashen. “Captain Jordan. We have to deal with the remains of this fleet quickly so we can get to Nesella. Sam, I need you to broadcast this intel to all insystem vessels. We must stop the Bollers at Nesella.”
“What if this is just one of the fleets they’re sending?” Jordan asked.
“No,” Katrina replied. “This is it. It’s over a quarter of their home fleet. They wouldn’t send more—it would make them too vulnerable. Besides, if they do, we’re screwed. That’s run-away time.”
Katrina shook her head, eyes fixed on a vision of Juasa standing next to the main holotank, her eyes filled with accusation.
“No.” Katrina drew herself up. “Jordan. Recall Demy and her team. Form up with Norm’s fifth flight. Take us to these coordinates. I’ll direct the colonels and their three flights to escort Teegarten and keep the Bollers off them.”
“Why there?” Jordan asked, frowning at the coordinates that Katrina had placed on the holo.
“Just do it, Jordan. OK?”
Jordan shot Katrina a hurt look. “Yeah, on it.”
Katrina felt a stab of momentary regret for snapping at Jordan, but she knew the captain wouldn’t like the orders that were coming next.
Best to wait ‘til the ships are in position before giving it.
CAVALRY
STELLAR DATE: 02.07.8512 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Castigation
REGION: Kora, Midditerra System
Seventeen ships formed up at the coordinates Katrina had provided.
However, as Katrina had feared, the surviving Bollam’s World ships continued to harass Teegarten Station, though the enemy no longer had enough firepower to close with it—not so long as the surviving MDF ships from flights one through three protected it.
By some perverse miracle, Myla had survived, but Greg and Safra had not.
Katrina put all the remaining ships, twenty-nine in total, under Myla’s command and told her to keep Teegarten safe.
“What the hell, Katrina! I can help at Nesella,” Myla yelled over the comms after receiving her orders.
“You can maybe help there, or you can absolutely keep these people safe here,” Katrina replied. “Even if the Bollers bugger off, you still need to organize search and rescue. Half your people are drifting dark in the void. Take some responsibility, Colonel.”
Katrina’s last statement shut Myla up, barring a final, “Yes, Warlord,” before she cut the comm signal.
“OK, Katrina,” Jordan said once Katrina’s conversation with Myla was over. “We’re here. Now what?”
“Now we jump.”
“We fucking what?” Jordan almost shouted, and every eye on the bridge turned to stare at Katrina.
“Not the whole way,” Katrina replied. “Just three AU. There’s a route that’s clear.”
“It’s not something that the canton leaders shared with everyone, but there’s a lot they kept off the public maps,” Katrina replied as she passed out the updated navigation data.
“We’re going,” Katrina said, her tone brooking no argument.
Thirteen ships signaled acknowledgement. Two canton frigates did not—both Selkirk ships—and Katrina sent a message to them.
There was no verbal response, but both ships signaled acknowledgement. Katrina had no way to believe they wouldn’t drop out of the dark layer a minute after transitioning, but it was the most she could do.
The Fifteen ships disappeared
, and then Katrina sent the signal to Norm aboard the Verisimilitude.
The Verisimilitude winked out of normal space. Katrina nodded to Jordan, who swallowed before signaling the Castigation’s helm to do likewise.
* * * * *
“I’ve got multiple contacts, a hundred destroyers, thirty cruisers! They’re almost right on top of us!” Scan cried out a moment after the Castigation re-entered normal space.
Sam put the data on the main holotank, and Katrina sucked in a deep breath. The main Boller fleet was spread out across five light seconds as they closed on Regula and Nesella station. The enemy was covering all the approaches, and Katrina’s small group of ships had jumped right into the middle of them.
Going back into the dark layer wasn’t an option; there was no clear path on their current vector
“Shit, Katrina, you just get crazier and crazier,” Jordan muttered as she directed helm to follow the order.
Sam helped the vessels coordinate the maneuver. The Castigation was at the front of the grouping, and the Verisimilitude was at the rear. The middle consisted of five MDF ships and eight canton frigates. Predictably, the two Selkirk vessels were nowhere to be seen.
Cowards. Katrina resolved to hunt them down later—if any of them survived.
She reviewed the positions that Sam had worked out, worried about the stories of shield-interlocks gone wrong. If the overlapping umbrellas were in the wrong positions, she knew they could create a graviton feedback that would crush the ships inside into a singularity.
“We’ve no choice, Sam.” Katrina worked to keep her voice steady. “Either that, or the BWSF squashes us.”
The ships of Cavalry One were already taking fire from nearby BWSF destroyers, though not enough to breach shields, and a dozen enemy cruisers were moving into range. They would crush Katrina’s ragtag group without any trouble at all.
