by Don Foxe
“We could hit them at the waterline,” Rain said. “They’re at sea, so treat them that way. Sink the damn thing.”
“Only it’s over a mile wide, high, and thick,” Mags said. “If we open holes at the waterline, they just hover a little higher, lifting the damaged area out of the ocean.”
Conversations receded while everyone considered their options.
Storm interrupted the quiet contemplations by informing the squad their leader was back in touch.
“Elie is on coms from the resistance camp,” she said, and opened the channel for all to hear, and speak with Captain Casalobos.
“Storm, give me a recap.” Everyone waited while the Fellen brought Elie up to date. “Where are plasma cannon emplacements on the planet?” Elie asked.
“Northern Crown emplacement is down thanks to Baker,” she reported. “Western coast site taken out by Fitz. There is one on the tip of the eastern peninsula of the super continent, near the major east-west meridian. There is another on the eastern continent, northwest coastline, eastern and northern hemisphere. Currently it’s on the dark side of Fell.
“There is one on the northwestern tip of the Super Island we call SCoslene, where the SC tribe live. It’s near the point where the major meridian and the equator meet. Finally there is one where the super continent and the southern polar region meet on top of the highest mountain in the southern Crown. Southwestern hemisphere, and it is also looking down at one of our hidden laboratories.”
She completed the report with, “There are between 15,000 and 20,000 Zenge troops stationed around each cannon emplacement.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about white noise bubbles,” Fitz chimed in. “Once we drop into the atmosphere, no sonic force field.”
Elie called out to Jim Huard, com-tac on Demon 2. “Jim, what do you have in torpedoes and mini-missiles?”
“Twelve total,” the com-tac replied. “Four explosive torpedoes, two nuclear torpedoes, and six tactical nuclear mini-missiles.”
A tactical nuclear weapon (or TNW) also known as non-strategic nuclear weapon refers to a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations. This is opposed to strategic nuclear weapons which are designed to be used against enemy cities, factories, and other larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war.
The yield on a TNW is considerably less than a heavy-duty nuclear weapon. The blast damages a specific area, and the radiation does not leach into the atmosphere and contaminate large areas.
“Here’s the first part of the plan,” Elie said to his squadron. “You start at the cannon on the eastern continent and work your way down, across the super continent, over to SCoslene, and finish at the Southern Crown. Sabre, you follow Mags. Angel 7 will strafe each location and pull fire as they fly past. You come in low, fast, and hard. Place one TNW on each target, then follow to the next. Fitz and Rain, you stay behind Sabre. Watch her six, and eval the strikes. After you hit all four, we reevaluate.”
“Ready when you are,” Noa responded. “We have missiles in the tubes and smart coms on each up and running. Jim can put the birds within feet of the target.”
Angel 7, with Demon 2 on her tail sped from behind the moon. They raced through the exosphere, the region of the atmosphere closest to the orbiting moon and beyond the thermosphere. The two Earth ships hit the thermosphere creating fire tails like comets. The thermosphere started at about fifty-five kilometers above Fell’s surface. The outside temperature was hot. Here temperature is not measured using a thermometer, but by looking at the motion and speed of the rarefied gases in this region, which are very energetic but would not affect a thermometer. Temperatures in this region reached thousands of degrees, but had no effect on the space ships.
Next they entered the mesosphere. The mesosphere sits above the stratosphere. The atmosphere very rarefied, that is, thin. The temperatures decrease dramatically with altitude, dropping to minus one-thirty Fahrenheit (minus ninety Celsius). Inside the attacking ships no one noticed the dramatic change in temperatures. Focus was on the incoming plasma and laser fire coming from the eastern continent cannon site. There was also sporadic fire from other surface locations. At the speed Angel 7 and Demon 2 were approaching, the incoming rounds looked to be in slow motion.
They reached the stratosphere, about thirty miles above the surface, and began their turns toward the initial target. In this region of the atmosphere is the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the harmful ultraviolet radiation from Fell’s sun. The temperature increases slightly with altitude in the stratosphere. The highest temperature in this region is only thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius. Temperature was not a factor, but friction was. The ships now had to maneuver like jets and not spaceships. Speed was reduced. Still, they traveled at nearly Mach 20, or 15,000 miles per hour.
They finally encountered the lowest atmospheric layer, the troposphere at about seven miles. The thick, moist Fellen air added more friction, dropping the two ships to just over Mach 10. Clouds engulfed them in the troposphere, with sheets of rain pounding against their hulls.
This presented the most dangerous position for the two ships. They were vulnerable to the same weapons that killed Baker and his team.
Mags evaded laser fire, and ducked plasma rounds as she came across the first cannon. Sky lacerated the camp, cannon and immediate vicinity with kinetic rounds and forward lasers. As Angel 7 screamed by, weapons on the ground followed their departure, leaving them vulnerable to Demon 2.
Huard drove the smart missile into the center of the plasma cannon fortification and followed Angel 7 southwest. Behind them a mushroom cloud billowed, and debris joined the rain, both falling on the obliterated target.
Sites at the peninsula and the SCoslene coast pinged the two ships as they crossed the ocean. Mags kept them just above wave tops, making it difficult for the enemy’s targeting software. As they crossed the major meridian Sky opened fire on the peninsula site. The fighter arched across the base and headed south. Unable to stop themselves from addressing the first threat, the second base left themselves exposed just long enough for another TNW to terminate their existence.
During all of this, not one word passed among the crews of Angel Wing. Not one person spoke to another aboard any of the ships.
The cannon on SCoslene was lined up and ready to fire as Angel 7 crossed the coastline of the super continent. Watching her head’s up display, Mags pulled back and took Angel 7 high at a sharp angle, and then straight back down. She was on top of the camp before they could reacquire from a horizontal firing solution to a nearly vertical one. The kinetic load Sky triggered hit the base so squarely, the follow-up by Sabre only finished killing the Zenge soldiers not finished by the initial detonation.
Mags continued across the huge island before turning back across the southern polar region of Fell. She came at the final encampment from mountain top height, occasionally dipping into valleys to disrupt their timing and force them to guess at her final flight path. She also had the dark behind her and the stealthy design of Angel 7.
When Angel 7 entered the daylight, she did so with wing-mounted laser cannons firing and the railgun laying down a double dose of nymphs and projectiles. Later, the Fell hunkered within the bunker-tech lab said it looked like a god throwing lightning and screaming thunder.
While Storm reported the damage wrought by their attack, Mags contacted Demon 2.
“Sabre, hold off on TNW. There are civilians within the area. Complete the run with lasers and tachyon cannon. Clear the base. Wipe it clean,” she ordered.
“My pleasure, Magpie,” came the reply. Demon 2 followed Angel 7’s flight line and opened fire on everything and everyone left standing at the site.
Fitz and Rain followed, bored and impressed.
CHAPTER 47
The Zenge mothership, more likely a Mischene design assigned to the Zenge for transportation of large numbers of soldiers, and to provide overw
helming firepower, seemed to float serenely in the ocean.
At the watermark she measured one-point-two-five miles across. An oblong design, with gentle slopes leading to a less-rounded upper section three-quarters of a mile long and a half-mile wide. The bridge-command tower on top deserted.
Angel Wing’s four remaining ships sat on an outcropping along the western coastline of the eastern continent. The mothership lay 2,500 miles northwest of their position.
The cruise ship, Star Gazer and the Parrian cargo ship continued to circle in space-fold, waiting for the final results of phase one of the mission to free Fell. Phase two could not begin until the mothership and other enemy aircraft had been eliminated.
“Thoughts?” Elie asked to anyone and everyone.
“Wish you were here,” Mags said. “Ordering orders, planning plans, and piloting at the same time are giving me a headache.”
“We could ask for a surrender,” Harper Leigh, call sign TRINITY, said from Angel 5. “If the Mischene are in control of the ship, they may be more likely to accept defeat and less likely to fight to the end.”
“Valid thought,” Elie agreed. “Storm?”
“I’ve been sending contact requests for over an hour,” the Fellen replied. “They refuse to acknowledge. I’ve even had time to figure out the crazy Zenge language. It’s all in impossible pitches, but I configured my com-tac to use Zenge-basic to request contact. Nothing.”
“At least we can better understand the chatter between the Zenge camps,” Sky said. “But that doesn’t help us now.”
“You blasted one to bits the last time you were here,” Fitz said. “Can’t we just do it again?”
“We surprised it, and came in from underneath,” Elie said. “This one isn’t going to be surprised. The electro-magnetic force field is huge and multiple dynamos regenerate damaged sections quickly. The ship has a dozen plasma cannons above the water line, and another dozen laser cannons. They show torpedo tubes that could send just about anything at us. And we don’t have a force field of our own within the atmosphere.”
“Time for the tachyon cannon,” Paré said. “We’ve used them sparingly since we arrived because of the reverb they cause, and the heat generated. They make better surface cannons, or work better in space aboard a much larger ship, but they still have the biggest punch.”
“Agreed,” Noa Tal said from Demon 2. “We’ve used tactics and strategy so far. We’ve used speed and smarts. We’ve outflown them, and out-maneuvered them. Now we need to pound them into submission. Demon is gone, and her crew needs us to quit screwing around out here and go get them. Angel 6 . . . Sam, Jim and Michael are dead. If we rattle some screws loose and pop some bolts to get it done, I say we do it.”
“Set timing with your computers,” Elie ordered. “You need to fire projectiles, then time the railgun to follow with a kinetic round that reaches the target ahead of the bullet. Time a tachyon burst with a plasma load to hit within three-seconds of the projectile hitting the hull. You only get one tachyon load every ten minutes.”
“Jab, cross, and a kick to the nuts,” Mags said. “I like it.”
“The mothership is the center of the compass. Demon 2 north, Angel 5 east, Angel 4 south, and Angel 7 west. 2,500 miles out. Pilots handle avoid and evasion of incoming fire, regardless of the type. Co-pilots are in charge of shooting down anything solid they throw at you; torpedo, missile or plasma load. Com-tac will control offensive strikes and timing via the computers. Once you start, you finish. Copy?”
“Demon 2, copy, north.”
“Angel 5, copy, east.”
“Angel 4, copy, south.”
“Angel Wing, I wish so badly I was there with you,” Elie said. “I expect everyone on their spots in twenty-minutes. Target acquisition and firing sequences begin on my mark. Good luck, good hunting, Flag out,” Captain Casalobos finished.
Thousands of miles from the action, Elie, Folly, Sparks and a lot of Fell freedom fighters watched thanks to a satellite optics emission hacked by Sparks.
Twenty-one minutes later four small Earth space fighters converged from points of the compass. They hovered in the thick atmosphere of a planet Trillions of miles from home. The pilots made small, precise changes to their position to allow laser bursts to pass by their ships harmlessly. It was a deadly dance of cobra and mongoose.
Co-pilots used line of sight and advanced computer tactical software to pick and shoot down anything solid that appeared to track their position. Smart-guided torpedoes and missiles were the priority, as their ships were too small for many of the plasma bursts to accurately target them.
Four com-tac officers began a heavy barrage of combined weapons fire. The jump of each tachyon burst and the constant hum of the railgun made it more and more difficult on the pilot to fly and co-pilot to target incoming enemy fire. As the offensive rounds made multiple contacts on the huge water-bound spaceship, return fire lessened.
Fellen resistance fighters and civilians hiding from Zenge patrols on two continents and the island of Scoslene later reported the sky above the great ocean was on fire. The clouds reflected red and yellow, and the rumble of weapons fire lasted for hours without a single break. People over two-hundred miles from the coast saw the atmosphere alight with flames, plasma, lasers, and lightening set off by the air-to-sea battle.
When the mothership finally blew, whether it was from their armament storage being hit, their engines destroyed, or the crew committing ritual suicide, the resulting explosive blast sounded across half a planet, and ocean waves lashed three coastlines.
Anything remaining of the mothership, and anyone left aboard alive, sank in the salty sea.
CHAPTER 48
After being called by Elie, Star Gazer and Morgan exited into natural space 40,000 miles above Fell. Both ships warned to watch for surface lasers capable of firing bursts that distance.
As the two ships descended into a closer orbit, a wormhole gate opened over a half-billion miles away, beyond the first planet in the system. Ion disruption would not allow for penetrating scans, but the Star Gazer’s advanced optics picked up a ship as it entered the gate and disappeared.
“Captain Casalobos, this is Commander Sonoritsch. A Mischene patrol ship exited the system via wormhole channel,” he informed Elie, who continued to monitor events from the resistance camp.
“Thank you, Commander,” Elie replied. “They must have been sitting out there observing. Nothing to do about it now. Please maintain your current orbit until you complete enhanced scans of the surface.”
Demon 2, Angels 4, and 5 rendezvoused with Star Gazer and docked inside the ship. Angel 7 made a landing in a small field next to the Fellen resistance group. As soon as Sky deployed landing gear, a couple of dozen men and women began throwing camouflage netting over the ship until scan deflectors could be raised.
The crew exited out of the back ramp and into the waiting arms of Storm’s father.
“AStermalanlan!” yelled a large blue Fellen with grey streaks in his auburn hair, and one arm in a sling, and ran toward them.
“Father!” Storm yelled equally loud, meeting the man half way in a hug of emotions and tears.
“ASkiilamentrae,” the man said, holding open his good arm, even as he was somehow able to hold onto his daughter. Sky joined the reunion.
“He asked me not to tell them he was here,” Elie said to Mags, after joining her a few steps beyond the family embrace. She wrapped her arms around her team mate and friend. “He wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Sparks and Folly?” Mags asked.
“In the camp,” she replied. “All the action, the crash landing, and the escape to here was taxing. They’re both asleep,” she explained.
“We had just entered camp when ASkiiumterel, Storm’s father, saw Sparks and just about jumped out of his blue skin. We told him about everything Storm and Sky had accomplished. He knows about his sister and brother-in-law and their family on Rys. They were all told the counterstrike was due to a
bargain made between Earth Storm and Sparks.
“My understanding is the stories have been circulating throughout the camp. We have three celebrities on Team Angel Wing now,” Elie concluded with a smile.
“And you, Mary Margaret Moore, are incredible. Who knew the smart mouth, no worries fighter jockey had so much leadership potential?”
“YOU!” Elie looked up to see Sparks running in their direction. He noted Elie move a half-step away, still grinning.
“YOU ARE AMAZING.” The Fellen reached Mags and pulled her into a swinging embrace. “Who is the most incredible space pilot in the galaxy? Captain Moore of Earth, that’s who. Welcome to Fell, Mags”
Before joining everyone for a fire-roasted meal, Elie entered Angel 7 to send a message to Star Gazer letting Sonoritsch, Cornitsch, and Gregory know everything was okay. She made sure they forwarded all reports to Admiral Patterson, and asked she send back an update on Coop.
Gregory let Elie know they were in a fixed position over the equator and allowing Fell’s rotation set the timeline for a slow, high definition scan of the planet’s surface activity. It would also allow the Angel Wing team members on the ground and those now aboard the converted cruise ship a much needed break.
Four hundred Fellen made up the resistance group that recovered Captain Askiiumterel’s escape pod and freed him from the wreckage. Some of these same fighters responded to Storm’s request to help the downed crew from Demon. As Elie crossed from Angel 7 to the gathering, she was back-slapped and greeted by just about all four hundred before making it to the circle of bodies circling the central campfire. Storm and Sky made it obvious that they had saved a place for her between them. She took a moment to stop and drop into a lotus position in front of Mags and Folly. Sparks sat next to Mags, smiling.
Elie spoke quietly to Mags and Folly, allowing only Sparks to overhear as she told them of her pride, commended them on their actions, and commiserated over the loss of Demon and the crew of Angel 6.
