On Flight Two, the scene was even more ominous, as the rarely deployed heavy gunships of Tarantula Hawk Green hovered across the spacious double-size flight deck to their launch tunnels, ground lamps rotating. The grinning faces of leprechauns with knives in their teeth, reptilian heads with frowning eyes, shamrocks, emerald jewels and at least one tree with a sneering face carved into its trunk were emblazoned on the hulls of the formidable warships. Their crews weren’t as experienced as Commander Doverly would have preferred, but fortunately for Captain Hunter’s hastily replaced forces, the marines had a few vessels that were at least somewhat similar to the T-Hawk and served a roughly similar role in surface warfare. So it wasn’t that much of a stretch to divide up the crews and get the wing operational.
Unlike T-Hawk Black, T-Hawk Green was optimized for space warfare. The heavier spaceframes and additional missile racks made the ‘A’ variant on the Tarantula Hawk design much more effective in open space engagements, especially against scout, frigate and destroyer targets. Eleven of them in a tight formation could muster the firepower of a full-sized heavy cruiser while maintaining the ability to outright avoid the most common weapons aboard their opposition. The gunships were one of the factors that made Argent both versatile and dangerous.
Shamrock Ten’s sharp wing structures folded over its hull as it ducked into the double-wide rail tunnel. The deck stacker locked the power capacitors with the pull of a huge handle on the overhead observation bay. The blast door sealed the tunnel a moment before the lights dimmed and the entire flight deck lurched. The warship blasted into space at hundreds of miles per hour and continued accelerating. Shamrock Ten deployed its weapons systems again and banked around to the port side of the gargantuan battleship just in time to slide into formation with the entirety of Argent Squadron 994.
Commander Doverly stood observing the real-time display of her squadrons flying combat patterns around her ship as they gathered their remaining fighters and gunships.
“Force commander, I want Wildcat Squadrons Sixteen, Three and Eighty-Five in space six minutes after the last Jack is dealt. Clear?”
“Affirmative, ma’am. Coding your orders.”
Annora took a moment. She wished Jason had been aboard to see it, because her orders had just made history, at least for her current command. It was the first time Argent had ever launched a full alpha strike wing. What made it all the more remarkable was they were doing it with replacement crews consisting entirely of marine combat pilots and deck crews. Annora had long ago learned to never underestimate a Skywatch marine, but what she was observing now was the stuff of legend. Two squadrons of Jacks and a T-Hawk wing were minutes away from their rally point and a full-spectrum strike on the inbound task force. Three squadrons of Cats and a second T-Hawk wing were about to hit the east perimeter of the Lethe Deeps base with Argent’s HAVOC batteries providing gunnery support for Komanov’s mobile base and a company of eighteen marine paladin mechs from Seventh Air-Ground.
She had to admit the full power of a Citadel-class battleship was more than she had imagined when she was recruited for her post. She also knew they needed everything they could muster to counter whatever might be lurking under that base. Commander Doverly hoped her captain had enough to prevail. Because if she didn’t, their worst nightmares about the threat to Core space might become a reality, and soon.
Fifty-Eight
Captain Darragh Walsh silently regarded the main viewer on the bridge of DSS Rhode Island. Two watches had been dismissed by now, and his XO was becoming more and more concerned. She stood near him, pretending to be looking at the same thing he was.
“Sir, with all due respect, you need rest. If we go into hard action, the fatigue–”
“Give me that D-rad reading again, signals,” Walsh interrupted.
A pause. “Zero Zero Six. No detectable delta from baseline since the last synch, sir.”
Nessa saw her captain curse under his breath. “What is it?”
“He’s modulating his engine emissions. I thought we were going to catch him at the edge of the atmosphere and at least get a course track,” Walsh growled. “But every bloody time he shifts his emissions and disappears before our navicomp can get a waveform. Keep driving him, helm. Get us in closer.”
Lieutenant Boyle moved to the tactical station and had the duty officer pull up the orbital track. “How accurate is our position map?”
“There’s five thousand miles of play along every vector,” Walsh replied without moving. “I could flush him out of there, but it will take all our birds.”
“What are our chances with energy only?”
“Too risky. Energy targeting is a toss-up as long as his cloak is operational. The Mantids, on the other hand–”
“D-rad spike. Zero One Four. Right on schedule.”
“You keep playing me, you bastard,” Walsh muttered. “One way or another, you’re going to make a mistake, and I’m going to be there when you do. Helm, steer four degrees starboard. Maintain your velocity.”
“Aye, captain. Helm answering. Course now four one mark one. Clock cycling two zero zero. Back to our original track.”
The malevolent shape of Walsh’s destroyer banked quietly and then resumed her course along the extreme outer edge of Bayone Seven’s magnetic field. The dark side of the planet’s atmosphere was peaceful, which only made things more difficult for the Rhode Island. As long as the chemical composition of the atmosphere was predictable, a cloaked ship could remain practically invisible indefinitely. The alternative was the “stock market” of tactical officers. They needed conditions to change in much the same way stockbrokers needed prices to change. Up or down didn’t matter. All that mattered was what they could buy or sell while conditions were in flux. It was when the readings changed that the slight difference between the new and old would reveal clues as to the position of a cloaked ship. If Rhode Island caught a solid waveform, her enemy would be reduced to background radiation and a debris field so fast they wouldn’t have time to realize they were dead.
“Steady as she goes, helm.”
Walsh stood resolute. Aside from his words, it was hard to tell if he was even breathing. Boyle cycled and re-cycled the tactical map, applying every overlay she could think of. Nothing brought up more than the edge of the planet and the same spectrographic analysis pattern for the atmosphere. Now she was cursing under her breath.
“Tactical. Identify readings at planet’s edge. Analysis, quickly,” Walsh ordered.
Boyle relinquished the controls and the tactical officer focused the ship’s short-range sensors on the darker patch at the edge of the planet’s terminator. “Low pressure zone in the atmosphere, sir. Could be a high-altitude storm of some kind.”
“Latitude?”
“Forty-one degrees north approx–”
“Helm! Hard-a-larboard! All ahead emergency flank speed!”
The Rhode Island’s pilot narrowly avoided an embarrassing accident at the sudden shout from her captain. She shoved the controls and rammed the throttle forward. The destroyer dove back to port and exploded towards the planet surface.
“Missile warning! Threat board! Vampire! Vampire!”
“Countermeasures! Now!” Walsh grabbed an overhead handhold to steady himself as the deck pitched under his feet. Lieutenant Boyle was thrown against a bank of sensor readouts. She grabbed the shock harness on the second sensor officer’s crash couch to keep from slamming to the deck.
High-speed breakaway transmitters rocketed into space as Rhode Island rolled away. A deadly anti-matter torpedo screamed through the deflection zone only a few hundred yards from where Walsh’s ship had been a moment before. The warhead impacted one of the countermeasures and detonated at a range of 65 miles. The shock knocked out every light on the bridge. For several chilling moments, the only illumination was the glowing red threat indicators. The captain’s voice shouted in the darkness.
“Tactical! Bring us up fast!”
When she could see ag
ain, Boyle noticed Walsh was still forward of the pilot’s station, watching the display like a hungry vulture.
“Forward launchers two and three! Target the trailing edge of the storm at zero six!”
“Affirmative! Warhead ready indicators missiles two! three–!”
“Fire blind! Push him, tactical! Push him!”
The lethal warship banked back to starboard and accelerated towards her fading target. A pair of agile Mantid-class birds screamed from Rhode Island’s forward launchers and tore through the orbital track like demons with rocket engines. A moment later concussion warheads detonated, causing devastating spherical explosions each of which tore a million tons of gas and debris out of Bayone Seven’s exosphere and then vaporized it in a twelve-million-degree hypernova. Waves of feedback plasma energy shook the angry Skywatch ship like an avalanche.
“Weapons detonation! Range zero point two!”
“Readings! Quickly!”
“D-rad indicator zero one five! No change!”
Boyle was back at tactical. Watching. Reading. Looking for anything that she could use to suss out even a hint of the enemy ship’s course. But it was like looking at a calm ocean from the beach. There just wasn’t anything there for the Rhode Island’s sensitive tracking instruments to get hold of. She moved quickly back to her captain’s side.
“We didn’t even get a firing position.”
“He’s got a scorch mark in the seat of his pants now, lieutenant,” Walsh said with a sinister tone in his voice. “He takes another shot at us and I’m going to give him a set of bite marks to go with it. Helm, resume orbital track. Back to our original course. Ahead one-half. Reload forward launchers two and three and arm warheads for short-range engagement.”
Rhode Island maneuvered back to her pursuit course and went back to watching and waiting with a full spread of concussion missiles armed.
A chill crawled up Lieutenant Boyle’s neck. No matter how high the rank of the person asking, she knew she would never be able to explain how the captain knew. The ship’s automatic threat avoidance systems never activated. Not one instrument on the ship had registered a thing until the enemy missile was right on top of them.
Captain Walsh folded his hands behind his back, then took a deep breath and exhaled, eyes fixed on the forward viewer.
Fifty-Nine
The airtight blast door at the east end of Gunfighter’s Quarry looked as if someone had attempted to construct their best interpretation of a nest of snakes around its hard lock. Smoke grenades had already rendered the area unviewable by standard video and the marines knew their tac-suits would prevent infrared from pinpointing their positions. The combat engineers had plenty of time to do their work, and they responded with a masterpiece of demolition tactics.
Since they had the time, Captain Hunter had waited as patiently as possible for the two explosives specialists on his team to bypass the system’s security devices, but his suspicions regarding the sophistication of his enemy were confirmed when nearly an hour had passed and they were no closer to gaining entry.
They would have to force their way in, and by the looks on the faceplate-clad faces of the marines around the entry point, it didn’t take much to guess what they expected on the other side. Thick white noodle-like lengths of an ultra-high-temperature demolition compound were painted on to the dense gray composite metal. At the edges, the compound had left blackened scoring where chemical reactions had already begun to eat away at the door.
Several shock riflemen retreated to a minimum range of 100 yards. All took cover behind the largest rocks, weapons at the ready. The sharpshooter marine looked over at Captain Hunter. Jason nodded. The marine took careful aim with his TK40 and fired.
A white flash and atmosphere shattering explosion thumped across the quarry. The closest rocks nearly disintegrated, and a cloud of acrid smoke drifted in all directions.
“Now!”
The two engineers that had failed to overcome the security systems did have one accomplishment to their credit, and that was to build a drop door above the subterranean tunnel leading to the lowest levels of the Lethe Deeps planetary defense base. The mechanism was, by some standards, crude and low tech, but nobody could argue with its effectiveness. Essentially, it consisted of a wide but relatively light composite surface suspended above the entry point. The combat engineers of the 117th swore by their doors, because once activated, they would fall to the ground or deck in front of the assault point and bring a medium-strength battle screen up across the surface. Any explosive, heavy weapon, grenade, rocket or other attempt to hit the “first marines through the door” would therefore be deflected right back against the defenders. Drop doors usually didn’t last long, but while they were in place, they often did a magnificent job of softening up the heaviest resistance.
The barrier thudded against the hard-packed ground seconds after the explosion impact wore off. A fiery burst of red-hot flame escaped around the edges of the drop door a moment later, followed by another thundering blast. Screams of pain echoed from inside the tunnel as the drop door pitched forward and clanged against the ground.
The same marine sharpshooter who had detonated the anti-mechanism charge was well prepared. He had been holding his aim into the tunnel since his first shot. A shape moved in the smoke, and he opened fire. White bolts of plasma energy flashed into the cramped space, burning the walls and floor, pulverizing blast points in the metal reinforced rock and hitting two humanoid defenders center mass with at least two shots each.
As the humanoid shapes fell back, a Sarn commando sprinted out of the tunnel. The closest two marines wheeled back as the enormous lizard-like creature took a mighty swing at one of them with a cutting weapon that looked to be the size of a small car fender. The marine sharpshooter fired at least nine rounds, but the melee prevented all but one from connecting. The lone sizzling wound in the creature’s shoulder only seemed to enrage it further. It reached up with both arms and slammed its weapon down, breaking one marine’s TK40 in half. It was winding up for a second attack when a powerful bolt from Captain Hunter’s sidearm struck it in the neck. It staggered back a few steps before the tenth shot from the sharpshooter hit it in the side of the head. The creature’s weapon banged against the tunnel floor.
“Look sharp,” Hunter said as he searched the downed commando for anything useful. He found three incendiary grenades which he fastened to the combat harness around his tac suit.
“Aye,” replied Strike Sergeant Lance O’Carroll as he performed a quick ready-check on his weapon. The TK40 still had a full charge. He cycled its capacitors and set the safety systems on stand-by. Configuring the weapon this way would require him to aim the weapon in order to fire it. One thing TK40‘s could do that previous generations of marine rifles could not was detect a non-Skywatch target through its optics system. Skywatch landing parties and marine combat units were all equipped with short-range transponders in addition to their battle-hardened commlinks. The newest generation of weapons used the unique signatures from these devices to separate friendly from hostile personnel on the battlefield. The results were so encouraging that similar systems were currently in development to add the capability to vehicle and spacecraft-mounted weapons.
“Mac, keep that handheld going and key for Sarn life signs.”
“Aye, captain,” Corporal Martin replied.
“No ranks, Mac,” O’Carroll said sharply. “If anyone hears you it makes him the primary target.”
“Aye,” she replied, her eyes a little wider than normal.
“Two by two, and check the corners,” Hunter said as he led the way into the complex.
The floor was dusty. It was relatively easy to see where the small group of defenders had rushed through the dark tunnel towards the access port. An immense scorch mark covered the walls and ceiling around the spot where the second explosion had detonated. Pieces of scattered wreckage were still burning among the five burned bodies strewn along the corridor.
&n
bsp; “Looks like we caught them with their own rocket, sir,” O’Carroll said.
“I was on the fence about drop doors until today. Now I’m a believer,” Hunter replied. “Keep one of those handhelds keyed to sweep beams. If there’s anything in here that even looks like an infrared emitter I want to know about it before we get anywhere near it, clear?”
“Aye.”
Hunter moved quietly up the corridor towards a half-open automatic door. Beyond was a medium-sized laboratory-like room with a large workbench structure in its center. The room was empty, but there was a closed automatic door along the opposite wall.
A rumbling crash shook the corridor. The marines and engineers all looked around for potential threats. Another rumble filled the hallway.
“Sounds like our friends in the 14th are introducing themselves to Atwell’s welcoming committee,” Hunter said quietly. “Let’s move. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Sixty
“What have we got, major?”
“It’s a Hobson’s choice, ma’am. We’re only one ship, no matter how many guns we can bring to bear,” replied the marine force commander. “Minstrel reports the main body attack force has dispatched a squadron with apparent orders to run for a point along our standard orbital track here.” Singleton indicated a spot along the edge of the liquid crystal display in Argent’s Combat Information Center. On the screen was a tactical map of Bayone Three’s orbit.
“That only puts us about two hours behind them if they track our orbit,” Doverly replied. “They can’t be coming after us?”
“No ma’am. They don’t have the tonnage. But they do have sufficient gunnery support. If they don’t try to avoid us they can do a lot of damage to the infantry,” Singleton replied. “Take a look at this.” The display shifted to a look-down track of the Lethe Deeps base. “We know they have heavy ground emplacements here, here and here.” The major indicated three gigantic structures that looked like blocks of cement and metal with domed superstructures built on their roofs.
Strike Battleship Engineers (The Ithis Campaign Book 2) Page 25
