“Doc has informed all of us that there is no hope of saving them, of returning them to sapience. Some semblance of intelligence yes, but not full sapience. Not on a level any of us would trust, the aggression is there, ingrained into their Psyche too deep to get out short of a lobotomy. So, they would remain in stasis forever.”
“This solves the problem. A twofer, two for one. I like it,” Rasha Warner said.
“As senior Naval officer on the station, I hereby approve of the plan. Anything to slow the bastards down and make them think twice.”
“You realize they will slaughter them right?”
“Depends, which side you mean? And I think we can help the casualty count go up if we really put our minds to it,” Rasha said nastily.
“It will take a couple hours to get them awake,” Clio said.
“Fine. Sheriff, we'll need some cowboys to wrangle them.”
“Cows these aren't but if you can funnel them in the right direction, I can give them the proper motivation to move in the direction we want them to go, if that's what you mean,” Derrango said, tipping his hat back.
...*...*...*...*...
Sergeant Nast noticed the lights go out the moment they entered the new Axial corridor. He'd been expecting it, the enemy had been cutting the lights and life support in any area his people entered. He frowned though, gas was puffing out of some of the vents along the far end. He flipped his night vision goggles down and then scowled.
“Something's coming,” Nast said. Unfortunately he was the only one of his troop who had night vision goggles. The goofs behind him had emergency lights. They knew better than to use them unless he said so though.
“Can you see something Sarge?” Pender asked nervously. They'd been sniped for a while now. That bothered them more than a frontal attack.
“The way this is going... I don't doubt it,” Nast muttered. He'd lost three men, two were casualties, one was KIA. That sucked, but it was to be expected. He heard a familiar scrabbling, something he wished he hadn't. He'd heard it one time in his life, and he'd never gotten over it. He sucked in a breath as he cupped his hands to his ears.
The sound repeated itself, then he heard the familiar sound of something running, getting closer.
“Take cover!” he snarled. “Ambush!” he said, pulling Pencil dick Pender into the center of the room. Pender had the Gatling, he could break any charge with a single squeeze of the trigger. There was a familiar scream, one that sent shivers down Nast's spine.
“Dilgarth!” he roared.
“Oh no they didn't! Oh shit!” his men gibbered, backing away. Nast turned a scowl on them, stopping them cold.
“Pender, hose em when they come around the bend,” he snarled, turning back to the Private.
“Hosing,” Pender said, gulping. Claws skittered on metal and then alien raptors from their nightmares were silhouetted by the fog. Nast knew he was the only one who could see them. “Let her rip!” he snarled, slapping the Private on the shoulder.
Pender closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The pitch black corridor erupted in a blinding light and sound of his Gatling gun going into full bore as he hip shot.
Pender moved the gun back and forth, throwing a stream of fire down the long corridor. He could hear something screaming on the other end, but things were working on either side of the stream, ducking it. Something else had jumped high.
Nast began to fire, hitting the Dilgarth that Pender missed. When one got in close he reversed his rifle and used it as a club, slamming one down to the ground before he stepped on it and fired at point blank range into its rolling eye. The thing squirmed, trying to bite him so he fired one more time then kicked it.
Pender finished firing and reloaded. While he did so two shooters moved in to cover him. They flipped their lights attached to their rifle barrels on, hammering anything that entered the light. The Dilgarth were photophobic however, they did their best to avoid the roving lights. After a moment they got the message and retreated.
Nast moved in, he fired single shots into the wounded, making sure each was dead. “Single shots, kill the wounded. Watch the teeth and claws.”
“Serge...”
“Do it!” Nast snarled. “And conserve your ammo. Something tells me we're going to need it. Remember, it doesn't come from heaven,” he growled. He spotted Pender taking a trophy with a knife. He snorted but didn't say anything. The man had earned it.
“What the hell?” the rear guard said turning at a sound behind him, just before screaming. He went down with a Dilgarth on him. A second and third followed.
“They're behind us!” a Private said in a panic, firing on full auto.
Nast turned at the fire, swearing bitterly. The damn aliens had used the weapons fire and their own sacrificial frontal charge to work their way around behind him.
“Ah hell, fire at will! Kill em all!” He ordered, wondering if the other fronts were having as much fun as he seemed to be having.
Chapter 32
Mayweather got sneaky, before exiting hyper they reduced their emissions to that of a freighter of the same mass and size. She bumbled in during the translation, dropping their power and active sensors to what a freighter would have. They used the ship's ECM to project the image of a freighter to the enemy.
Immediately after their systems settled Firefly launched remote recon drone platforms to scout the inner system. On a ballistic trajectory it would take each drone a week to get to the station and pass through the nearby space.
“We're still getting a head count skipper. Neutrino's and mass readings make it... ninety or more potentially hostile forces. That number may be higher.”
“That's a lot of ships,” Shelby said cautiously.
“Not all of them are warships. I'm betting not even half of them,” the Captain replied, intently studying the screens as their data solidified. CIC was stuck using the passive feed, she didn't want to give themselves away. Not that anyone could miss the telltale arrival of a jump transition.
“Rig for silent running. Get us under stealth now number one,” she said.
“Aye Captain, stealth mode. Rig for silent running,” Shelby called out. “Set condition two.”
“Now it's our turn you bastards,” the Captain murmured, searching for a weakness. The ships were mostly clustered around the station.
“As much as I'd like to think of us in the role of the hunter skipper, that's a lot of game with a lot of guns.”
“Pish posh, we'll go with bushwhack three. Snipe them.”
Firefly's smart skin changed, darkening to an inky black. After a moment stars appeared, perfectly matching the stars behind the ship. She moved out, not under her wedge, but with a soft puff of thrust before she went on a ballistic course into the inner system.
...*...*...*...*...
A few hours later the Captain wasn't so chipper. She turned to the elf. “Anything guns?” She turned to the sensor techs.
“CIC has tentatively identified a few of the smaller craft as gunships Captain. I'm sorry, right now, at this range and with passives only, that's the best we've got.”
“What about their power plants? Mass readings?” she asked. “Anything matching our files? Surely something has to be there!”
“I'm sorry Captain,” the elf said, shaking her head. “It's not that simple. We could tell the difference between a military grade drive or power plant, but they're using civilian grade across the board.”
“Oh.”
“And the mass readings are just about useless, the smaller ships we can pick out, but are they warships or small freighters?”
“Um... I'm going to go with a warship.”
“Oh? What about a yacht? Or a yacht with a turret grafted on. See our dilemma?” Purple Thorn asked.
The Captain nodded. “What about optical?”
“Some of the ships are running with running lights, but most aren't. They're dark, either a dark gray or blacked out like us.”
“Oh.”
“So, what you're telling me is that we're dead in the water. We have no clue what we're really up against?” Mayweather demanded. “Come on people! Give me something here!” she demanded.
“We're nowhere with communications ma'am. It's all encrypted,” a rating informed her.
“That's negative information. How about something positive?”
“We're trying Captain. We've got time I think. It will be at least another hour before the flash of our arrival reaches them.”
...*...*...*...*...
“Admiral, a ship has arrived in the system from the Triang jump point,” a rating said, looking at the admiral and then to his Captain.
The Captain frowned ferociously behind the admiral's back. The rating had stolen his thunder. The rating gulped paling slightly.
The admiral glanced at the Captain but he had schooled his expression into a polite mask. “Oh?” the admiral asked.
“From its energy level upon emergence, it's mass reading, and it's drive spec we've classed it as a medium freighter, most likely in the four megaton range.”
“Ah,” the admiral said, nodding. They'd lost two ships when they had entered the system, both had run when they had arrived. The admiral had refused to detach corvettes to secure the other jump points. One had made it to the B452A jump point and had jumped south. The other had gotten out of the shipyard and followed the first a day before they entered the inner system. They had watched with impotent rage as the tiny ship, most likely a converted yacht, had gotten it's legs under it and made for the B452A jump point as well. Most likely they were screaming up a storm, warning the systems they jumped through of the pirate fleet. Well, let them.
“She's a bit slow sir.”
“Fully ladened, or just old. Most likely old. Well, we'll send out a greeting to her. Get me Sirius's Captain. I have a task for him and oh, the first Frigate group and oh, detach two of the gunships. That should be enough of a net to catch our fat friend,” the admiral said, tapping the blinking icon on the plot.
...*...*...*...*...
Firefly's CIC finally picked up movement, three frigates a half a dozen gunships, and a tin can had split off from the main formation and set upon an intercept course. It was obvious that they were going to try to run them down, they had built up a vector allowing them to cut the decoy off from the two jump points it was facing, the jump point south to B450A, or the one to the east, the least used jump point to an empty system that connected to New Texas. The system wasn't even named on their star charts, it was so rarely used because it was perilously close to a magnetar.
“We're getting a bit more detail now Captain, at least on the ships coming out to meet us. The gunships are further out, in a rosette formation on the Y and X axis of the incoming formation. The frigates are split on all three axis, but one is running further afield. ETA to decoy is twenty six hours.”
“Understood. I guess we'll have to wait then.”
“I don't think we'll have to wait quite that long Captain. They should burn through the decoy's camouflage long before then,” the Veraxin sensor officer said.
“Maybe. Then again, maybe not. If they aren't expecting it, and if their sensors are about on par with what they had in Pyrax...” Mayweather shrugged.
“We can't count on that ma'am. You know that.”
“No, but we'll see shall we?”
“We're getting a tentative ID on the tin can. CIC is calling it an Arborth class, the Sirius they think.”
“The Serious? Are they serious? Did someone really name a ship that?” The Captain asked, clearly amused.
“No ma'am. Sirius,” the sensor officer said. “CIC made the call based on markings on her hull they said. I'm not sure if it's legit.”
“We'll see.”
“They aren't coming together Captain, they're coming at us piecemeal. From the look of it the smaller ships are forming a net. They'll either drive us into the tin can's guns or into a group of their own guns.”
“You mean our doppelganger. We're going in a different route. Helm, stick to bushwhacker three. We'll take them on one by one, starting with the big boy. We'll take him out early, no pussy footing around with him. Then we'll pick off any stragglers.”
“Defeat in detail.”
“Definitely. I'm glad the enemy Commander sent out a piece of his force like this. Defeat in detail indeed. It's almost like he was begging for us to do this.”
“Perhaps it was because he fell for the bait Captain?” Purple Thorn asked, clearly amused.
“Never fall in love with your own plan or perceptions. They are invariably skewed or wrong. Always anticipate that your enemy sees through your schemes. Never plan on them working out perfectly.”
“Straight from the tactical manual.”
“I try.”
“True. This is working out nicely ma'am.”
“Just the way we wanted. Did that other signal go out?” the Captain asked, turning to the comm officer. He nodded. “Good then. Hopefully someone's still alive on the station and the planet to answer sometime soon. Give me a clock, let me know when we can expect a response from each,” she said. The taciturn com officer nodded again and a pair of counting down digital timers appeared to hover over her station.
“Skipper, we have picked up unencrypted messages from the planet. Media broadcasts. It's faint, and a bit distorted, but we've gotten enough to start getting a picture of what's been going on.”
“Oh? So the planet hasn't fallen yet?”
“No ma'am. Not for a lack of trying on the Horathian's part. The station however, has fallen. It's shields broke down ten days ago.”
“Crap.”
She studied the intel they had. The Horathian pirates were occupying the station, or trying to. Resistance was still ongoing from reports in the media. The pirates were holding off from the planet, but striking it with rock bombs and pieces of orbital industry from outside the planetary weapons range. They had taken out some of the communication satellites and pounded a transhab station into wreckage as a show of force the day before.
“The enemy leader's name is Admiral Cartwright. Rear Admiral.” She frowned, looking at his image. He'd sent a blunt order for the planet to surrender just before his show of force. He was a piece of work, blowing apart a defenseless station. She couldn't wait to lock horns with him, show him what it was like to fight an enemy who could fight back.
...*...*...*...*...
As they crossed the system to the intercept point they received better readings on the ships, their types, equipment, drives, and numbers from the recon drones and their own passive sensors.
They were in for a stiff fight, even though the enemy was coming in piecemeal. Three tin cans, a dozen frigates so far identified, and twenty to forty gunships. They still didn't have a hard number on the other ships, though CIC was pretty sure of at least fifteen corvettes, possibly more.
They were matching the sensor feeds with the data Lieandra had provided them. It still didn't give her any information about their best speed, weapon mix, and Captain's skills, but it did give her the ship classes and possible locations. They would have to work with what they had.
A day out they dropped a half squadron of fighters under the command of Hurt Locker while passing through the oort cloud. The Cobra fighters went in on a different vector under stealth. The fighters had a long dangerous flight ahead of them, mostly ballistic to conserve fuel. They would be coming into the space around the station and yard with less than half of their fuel remaining and battle looming. Dangerous, but a worthy risk if they pulled their part off. They had a lot to prove.
Mayweather watched them go. She was a bit nervous about this bit, it would work or it wouldn't. It was a gamble. The fighters would be on the ragged edge
of exhaustion by the time they got into striking distance, low on life support, down to half their fuel, and probably a little mad from being cooped up in their fighters for the better part of three days.
...*...*...*...*...
The Warners received the signal and long dormant IFF protocols kicked in. Rash responded, knowing it could be a trap, but recognizing the IFF of Firefly. The admiral had told them of the ship and of the events in Pyrax.
“It's a trap!”
“Nonsense!”
“No, it's the real deal,” Rasha replied patiently, expecting such doubt. She opened the file and shared it with the other councilors. When each received the signal they frowned, torn by it. Warner blinked, glowing in navy blue. So did his wife. So did one other person.
“It...” Warner turned in surprise to see an echo of the IFF and the blue glow from an unexpected source. He turned to stare at Hishina Fu, wife of Yan Fu. “Um, what's going on here?” he demanded. Her IFF had changed to that of a first Lieutenant, but resigned.
She smiled softly. “It seems my secret is out. I have you by date of rank Lieutenant, but you are a reservist, I resigned my commission,” Mrs. Fu said, ignoring the 'et tu' look her husband was giving her. “We have no time to go over this,” she said brusquely. “The signal is valid, I too recognize the IFF. There is no disputing that.”
Some looked at her as if she had changed in their presence. In a way she had, gone was the self effacing quiet shadow of Yan. Here now was a woman with new found purpose, to protect her people. The past ten days had ground that into her, it had washed away the centuries of peace and harmonious thoughts conditioned into her.
“But... they could be spoofing it!”
“It's a possibility, but a remote one. The admiral gave us protocols. Sprite embedded them in our implants and sent the other half of the encryption key as well as data about us out to Pyrax. They have it obviously.”
“But...”
“If they had known about us before they would have acted on that knowledge, not let us play this cat and mouse game we have been playing the past ten days,” Hishina Fu said. Her husband nodded. From his look he was going with her this time, a role reversal. Rasha hid a smile. She'd love to be a fly on the bulkhead when they finally had enough alone time to bring up Hishina's hidden secret. Obviously she'd kept it hidden even from her husband.
Jethro: First to Fight Page 61
