by Kal Spriggs
“Another hand?” Clint asked, somewhat hopefully. Jason, his normal backup for playing just shook his head. Jude grunted sourly and shook his head as well.
Heller shrugged, ear-buds still in, “I could play more.” She hadn't really lost much, Garret knew. Heller, as in all things, was a calculating and shrewd woman... when she wanted to be.
Abigail looked somewhat conflicted. “I've got to run a full hundred hour scheduled maintenance on my Hammer before we get to Wenceslaus.” That would probably take her even longer than most, Garret knew. Not because she didn't know her business, more because she was incredibly thorough. Better, with her father's guidance, she knew mechanical systems very well and she had already caught a couple of their flight mechanics errors. Showing them up like that bruised some egos, but it also made them work that much harder. “Sorry, I got to go.”
“That leaves four?” Clint asked as Abigail, Jason and Jude left the cramped room. It was, officially, a supply room on the tiny vessel. Since the Hammer's flight crews ate a lot, that meant they'd managed to condense the supplies out of it early on in their twelve day journey. It currently served as their lounge.
“Yep,” Garret said. He still had the one bag of coffee and though Heller was devious enough to take it, he felt like he had to get some luck back at this point.
Caela smirked, “Now that the Captain's girlfriend is gone, maybe I can get some good cards.”
Garret felt his face go hard and he glared at the pilot, “You watch your tone. She's not my girlfriend... and she is an officer.” As mercenaries went, that didn't hold as much weight as in a professional military. It did, however, hold enough weight that Caela, as a warrant officer, should never make a comment like that... especially not in front of Clint, who was another officer.
Heller pulled her ear-buds out, “Caela, shut your pie-hole. You're just jealous that she's got a nicer butt than you.”
The warrant officer flushed, but even Garret snorted at the comment. Caela was notorious for both being extremely conceited and also for sleeping around with the other pilots. As always, Heller managed to diffuse the situation in a way that made the troublemaker look silly and without picking sides.
Clint looked around at the three of them, “Uh, cards?”
Caela frowned, “I think I'm done here,” she said, venomously. She pushed away from the table and all but stomped out of the room.
Clint groaned, but he put up the cards. “Shit, now I'm seriously down on trade goods for the rest of the voyage and she'll be all pissy and not want to play, Captain.”
Garret shook his head, “She should watch what she says, then.”
Clint just shrugged and stepped out. Garret looked over at Heller, “Really?”
Heller gave him a smirk as she put her ear-buds back in, “What, Captain? I'm right, your girlfriend has a much nicer butt than Caela.”
***
Wenceslaus System
Colonial Republic
November 16, 2403
Mason gave another glance at Lauren, but much like the past two weeks, she wore no expression beyond her professional mask in public. His own emotions about her were such a complex tangle that he didn't really know what to make of that. On the one hand, he couldn't deny the physical attraction he felt for her, had indeed felt for some time. It went beyond that, really, to a respect of both her capabilities and her determination. On the other hand, his history of relationships, ranging from friends to lovers was one that had left far more broken and battered lives than he even wanted to contemplate. The one constant in that category was the sooner someone got as far away as possible the happier they were likely to be in the long run. Once again he thought of Arela Savino and how the warm, caring woman had turned into a cold, sociopath he had eventually walked away from.
What he felt for Lauren wasn't the simple physical draw that Lucretta Mannetti gave him. That was there, to be sure, but there was something more, something Mason hadn't felt in so long that he hesitated to name it. It seemed absurd and part of Mason wanted to reject it all out of hand. Yet, there was no denying it and no denying the longing that kept him awake at night.
Kandergain cleared her throat and Mason tore his gaze away from Lauren to meet her eyes. The psychic woman had a slight smile on her face, as if she knew exactly what was going through his head. No, he thought, even a psychic couldn't read my mind when I don't know it myself. Got to be a female thing, he decided, they always seem to know or understand way too much when it came to relationships.
“We're almost there, Captain Stavros,” Kandergain said.
Mason grimaced, “Lauren, bring us to battle readiness. Mark, message Commodore Moore with our time to destination and the latest update from Captain Oronkwo.” They had updated the Commodore and the other vessels before, but it didn't hurt to remind them. Mason glanced at the latest update. The military ships were mostly at dock, all but a half dozen destroyers in the alert force. Those destroyers were at alert status, which meant their drives were online and their reactors were at standby power, ready to go to full power with even a few minutes warning. Captain Oronkwo hadn't wanted to risk going close enough to identify the destroyers classes, not that Mason blamed him. There had been a slight upgrade to the system's sensor net, primarily in tight orbit over the inhabited planet, Bohemia. The obvious objective was to cut down on smuggling, but it also prevented the mercenary captain from getting close enough for accurate visual inspection. Short of one of the ships going to full power for a full emissions signature, Oronkwo couldn't get a good read on them. In any case, those six destroyers were the primary targets for most of their raid force's firepower. Mason felt no real temptation to try a repeat of his previous attack at the Ottokar system. For one thing, the RLF ships at Wenceslaus had a nastier reputation, for another, anything less than lethal force would not be enough to dissuade the docked ships. Strong as their force was, the station had over a dozen cruisers and enough fighters to swarm them under if they launched all at once.
The clock ticked away the final minutes and Mason pulled his helmet out from under his command chair and racked it next to his console. A glance around showed that the others on the bridge were similarly prepared. A quick raid against minimal defenses or his berserk charge into the enemy formation at Ottokar hadn't warranted such preparations, not among the pirates that Mason had recruited anyway. Besides, Stavros was so certain of his own invulnerability that he had only acquiesced to Lauren's entreaty after a serious, and very public, argument.
Mason would have never tolerated such slack on any of the ships he had commanded previously, yet most pirates had serious slack when it came to not only their own safety, but their training as well. Lauren had run an inspection of gear, training and maintenance over the twelve day voyage and found far too many discrepancies, issues and outright hazards. Her punishments had been both inventive and educational. Mason grinned as he remembered how the cargo chief had spent the past ten days in not only his shipsuit, but also in his full fire-protective bunker gear. While Carlos Ortiz's proficiency with conducting his actual job might not have improved, he had become much more adept at checking his equipment, particularly after Lauren threatened to vent him out an airlock if he failed another of her inspections.
While the crew had settled into a surly state of hatred for her, Mason felt nothing but amusement and pride when he thought about it. She had shamed the man, yes, and rubbed his nose in the fact that he didn't meet even the basic standards needed to survive. That kind of discipline wouldn't work aboard an actual military vessel, but among the pirate crew, it was particularly effective.
On that thought, the last seconds ticked away and the gray nothingness of shadow vanished, replaced by a sullen red star and the huge spread of a blue green world that took up most of the port side. A glance at his screens showed Captain Penwaithe's Hammers had detached from their carrier vessels.
“Mark, get me a lock on those destroyers,” Mason said.
Mark Mendoza cursed a
moment later, “Captain Stavros, those aren't destroyers, they're Liberation-class carriers, and they're launching!”
“Get me a target, now!” Mason snapped. He flipped a switch to connect to Khemali, “Launch now, we have enemy birds in the air.”
They had planned to engage any ready fighters from the station, but the Liberators were positioned in an entirely different area. Also, they were nasty little carriers, destroyer-sized but they carried three squadrons of either Patriots or the mark twos. Sure enough, fighter icons began to blossom on the screen from not only the station but from the carriers. “Hammers are engaging the station's ready fighters,” Lauren said, her voice tight. Mason couldn't blame her, those fighters each carried four fission warheads, and they faced over one hundred and eight fighters and four hundred and forty eight missiles if they managed to launch. Worse, they were on their flank, outside range of Commodore Moore's cruisers, barely in range of the Kraken's main batteries.
Finally the icons of the six carriers flashed to show target locks, “Engage,” Mason snapped. He didn't care about the crews they would kill, many still clambering into their gear. He didn't care about the fighter pilots who would die as their launch platform erupted around them. He just wanted them dead so they weren't a threat.
The heavy beams from the Kraken lanced out. The carriers were fragile targets, designed to launch their fighters at long range and not for the crucible of combat. Fire blossomed from their sides as Lauren swept the primary and secondary batteries across them. Two of them simply blasted apart, their hulls shattering under the heavy energy beams. A third one vanished in a pinprick bright flare as its fusion plant let go. The other three simply shattered, gutted by the continuous fire of the energy batteries.
But their fighters hadn't all died with them, Mason saw. At least fifty of the hundred-plus fighters had launched and Mason could see active radar already pinged him from both the station and the fighters. “Activate jamming,” Mason said. His gaze flicked over to the two elderly cruisers from Halcyon. They mounted chaff and jamming and Mason could see it deploy, even as the Hammers began to launch interceptor missiles at the inbound fighters from the station.
It won't be enough, Mason could see. If he were smart, he would remain in position, with the two cruisers in between his own ship and the inbound fighters. They would take the brunt of the fire. Indeed, they had better interceptor capabilities... but they were also better targets and lacked his own jamming capabilities.
Mason swore, “Those bastards want a fight, do they!” He turned to Kandergain, “Plot me a course, right down their throats!” Mason snapped and pointed at the inbound fighters.
He could see the consternation on the faces of his crew. That course would make the Kraken the primary target. Worse, it would bring them up and away from the planet, which meant any ships that launched would be free to engage them. He brought up a channel to Commodore Moore, “We'll engage the enemy head on, Commodore.”
The man stared at him with a stunned expression. Clearly he felt too frozen to make a decision. Meanwhile, the enemy fighter formations formed up. Mason cut the channel. Kandergain had already brought up the basic course and Mason brought the engines to full as he spun the ship hard over. “Engage the fighters with primary and secondary batteries, retain our interceptor fire for their missile launch.”
He flipped a switch to talk to Asara Khemali, the commander for his pair of squadrons. “Target any fighters or missiles which break through our main fire.” In a more professional outfit, he would have set up overlapping fields of fire interlocked to allow multiple methods of interception.
With his current crew, that was levels of training beyond them. Instead, he was going for volume of fire, which meant at least some of those missiles would get through, despite the jamming, despite the fire, and despite the evasive maneuvers that Kandergain updated his flight pattern with.
The Kraken had heavy defense screens for its size, almost as well protected as one of the Chxor ten-class cruisers, with several overlapping bands along the front, back, and sides. Even so, the ten megaton fission warheads carried by the Patriots would be enough to knock a screen down with even one proximity hit. If one went off in contact with the hull, it would likely destroy the ship, armor or no. That would be one hell of a lucky shot for Colonial Republic missiles and pilots, Mason thought, but there's about to be a lot of inbound.
As he thought that, Lauren opened fire. The heavier weapons of the Kraken were overkill for something the size of a fighter, yet they clearly had not been prepared for an attack at that range. Fighter icons died, still at twenty thousand kilometers, so far that their deaths weren't visible to the human eye.
Not nearly enough, though, as the others launched their payloads. They launched in a staggered, chaotic jumble as fighters volleyed their missiles hastily before going into evasive patterns. “Target priority is the missiles,” Mason said. “The fighters are no threat, now. We can destroy them later.”
Mason watched, outwardly calm, as the wave of missiles swept in. His ship had already moved out and in front of the two elderly Independence-class cruisers. A glance at his screens showed that they had begun to establish fire screens against the station's ready fighters as originally planned.
“Full jamming, full spectrum and with emitter variation,” Mason said. The Kraken's jamming went into full effect. The jamming emitters around the ship cycled and varied their strength. While most ships had one or two emitters, the Kraken mounted eight. That allowed them to not only jam in all directions but also to vary the position of that jamming, both forward and aft. In effect, the Kraken could change not just the frequency and strength of jamming, but also the position in relation to the rest of the vessel. That made it significantly more difficult for passive sensors to lock in on the source of the jamming as a target even as it blinded active sensors.
The flight of missiles went haywire as the jamming went to full effect. The simpler radar systems on many of the missiles couldn't compensate for the vast array of interference and almost a quarter of them went haywire or simply shut down. Mason winced though as the final reads on the missiles showed over two hundred still in flight. That number dropped as the main batteries engaged, but it wasn't dropping fast enough. They literally didn't have time to engage all those targets. They had under a minute before the wave of missiles would hit.
The remaining missiles were mostly blinded, but they were still homing on the Kraken. Mason had no eyes for the rest of the fight as he snapped out commands to Lauren at the guns and Kandergain at the controls. This is going to be really close, Mason thought, even as he slapped his helmet over his head.
Kandergain's uploaded maneuvers updated just as the missiles went into final attack mode. The Kraken rolled through a sharp turn and acceleration designed to shake them. Though the missiles could maneuver more sharply, the Kraken could almost match their acceleration.
The missiles began to detonate in a staggered series that washed out their sensors. The ship shuddered under multiple impacts, one of which hit hard enough to fling Mason against his chair restraints. Alarms began to blare and warning lights flashed across his console.
A glance at it showed that they had emerged mostly intact. The last big hit was one missile which had detonated against their port side defense screen and knocked it offline. The damage display indicated that they'd lost those induction coils along with a sizable portion of hull where it had blown out. He couldn't be certain of how bad the damage was until the crew looked at it because of all the sensors and automated systems down in that section.
Mason wasn't sure how many missiles had gone after the Kraken, but only a dozen or so had continued past, and it looked as if Commodore Moore's cruisers could handle those. He took a moment to check his own fighter squadrons. He blanched as he saw that both squadrons were gone. They must have been either too close during our final maneuvers or the enemy targeted them as well, Mason thought, my fault, I should have had them disperse more. He loo
ked up at Mark Mendoza, “Review the sensor feed, find out what happened to Khemali and those Falkes.”
“Captain,” Mark Mendoza responded. The man's face was pale, almost as if he realized just how lucky they all were to still be alive, “They were forward of us when the missiles came in. I'm not sure... but I think the enemy had some interceptor missiles mixed in with the others. Either that or they had fighters programmed in as secondary targets. There were fifty-plus missiles that went for them just before I lost sensors.”
Mason grimaced. I should have pulled them back, he thought. Granted, he'd purposely chosen pilots he considered expendable, most of them were men and women that probably deserved to be taken out of the human race, but it still hurt to lose people to such a simple mistake. A glance at the faces of his crew, however, showed mostly shock as well as excitement. They didn't care that they'd just lost twelve pilots, they cared that they had survived.
“Well,” Mason said, “That was fun.” He looked over at Mendoza, “Message the enemy fighter squadrons. Order them to power down or we'll engage them. Any attempt to escape or attack and we'll destroy them as well. We need some replacement fighters. Tell them we're hiring pilots too.” He said the last with a broad smile, even though inside he wanted to swear.
“Yes, Captain,” Mark said. Like the others, his face was happy. They had stuck their head in the dragon's mouth and pulled it out. “Commodore Moore says they have received the station's conditional surrender.”
“Excellent,” Mason said. He unstrapped his seat restraints and stood. There was still the possibility of more fighting, but Mason felt too keyed up to remain seated. He could see that most of the enemy fighters had powered down as ordered. A couple tried to break for atmosphere and Lauren didn't hesitate to fire on them. The remaining ones powered down as their comrades craft flared and died.
