Warpath

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Seal that off, get our good side facing the enemy, and start plotting a wormhole course to Kambis orbit, safe arrival space,” Jake said, seeing that the wormhole generator was intact and still charged. The Warlord had drifted past the asteroid field, and had luckily put itself under cover, the field was between them and the carrier group. “Launch fighters, we need them to stay close and to provide countermeasure fire in case those ships start sending guided missiles our way.”

  “Aye, fighter launch systems are up and running, launching,” Frost said. “I’m surprised there’s a straight line left on this ship after that. First pair are away.”

  “This is Carnie,” announced one of the newest additions to the Samurai Squadron. “Me and Hottie are on station, ready to stop anything coming at the Warlord while you get things running. Initial scans of the carrier group show heavy damage, but I’m guessing they’ll be able to recover enough to ruin our day.”

  Jake didn’t know much about the new pair in the Samurai Squadron. He hadn’t even met them, but Carnie was well known as an incredible shot, and Hottie was a man who did not enjoy his call sign in the least, but no one told Jake the story behind it. Both were phenomenal pilots that Minh-Chu had to fight with Triton Fleet for.

  His tactical display told him two more fighters launched off the racks and another pair were being loaded. They may be able to provide the modest cover they needed.

  “Main sensor array is up!” Kadri said, surprised. “Pin a medal on the tech that got that working again,” she added. “I have a clear read on those destroyers. Full crews, the furthest one from us has no shields on its aft-port quarter, the other is turning to intercept us. The Carrier’s shields are down on the fore-dorsal section, port launch bay is severely damaged, as well as the starboard launch bay, but their main hangar can only open a quarter of the way, and it is launching small ships. They don’t look like fighters. Both the battlecruisers took light damage, they are moving into position above the carrier to cover with their shields.”

  Jake looked at the ships that the carrier was launching. “Those look like pods with a rocket on one end and some kind of cutter system on the front.”

  “Never seen anything like that before,” Frost said. “There are four people in each.”

  “Carnie here,” announced the pilot. “I’ll have a firing solution on those in just a sec. We’ll have all our birds out playing defence in a few seconds, Warlord, don’t worry.”

  “Wormhole course plotted,” Ashley said.

  “Start opening it,” Jake said. The carrier launched another wave of pods, it appeared on his tactical display as a line of twenty-four new contacts. “Hurry.”

  The first wave of six got clear of the asteroids between them and the warlord, and the fighters opened fire. The rockets on the back of the pods fired, sending them towards the Warlord at an alarming speed. Five were obliterated by their cover fire before they could finish the trip to the Warlord, the sixth was heavily damaged, but its momentum carried it past the fighters. It struck the hull of the Warlord and went spinning past it, directly through the point in space where they were generating their wormhole.

  “Wormhole generation failed,” Ashley’s navigator announced. “The surface of that thing reflected enough energy to interrupt it.”

  “Do we have enough power to generate another right away?” Jake asked.

  “Nope, it’ll take eleven minutes,” Ashley replied. “Could speed it up if we can get more power though.”

  “Warlord,” Hottie said over his communicator from the cockpit of his fighter. “We have a problem, no way are we knocking all those pods out.”

  Jake saw what he was talking about. The pods were splitting up, getting enough distance from each other so the fighters and the Warlord would have trouble taking two or more out at a time. They fired their rocket engines, accelerating so quickly that the tactical display in Jake’s helmet couldn’t quite keep up.

  “Our last turrets are helping with that,” Frost said. “Something is going to get through.”

  “Counter incursion teams, get ready,” Jake said.

  Alice and Stephanie checked in as ready.

  “One of those destroyers will have a firing solution on us in one minute and twelve seconds,” Frost said.

  “Get us under cover, Ash,” Jake said. “Use the asteroids, we can’t take direct hits from that ship.”

  “I’m trying,” Ashley replied. “None of my thrusters are running at full power, and I’d be real happy if someone could jumpstart my number four engine.”

  “On it,” Finn said. “I have a damage control officer on his way out.”

  With a glance Jake could see that David Penton, a man he’d saved from slavery before they arrived on Tamber, was on his way through a maintenance hatch to the pylon holding thruster four. “He has the worst timing,” he said under his breath. “Get that wormhole generator charging faster,” Jake said.

  The seven Samurai Squadron fighters fired at the incoming pods, sending streaks of automatic gunfire and missiles towards the approaching wall. Five heavy thuds sounded against the hull, followed by a rain of shrapnel. To Jake’s amazement, David managed to avoid getting torn to shreds or crushed by hiding behind the thruster pylon in the nick of time. “Captain, I can see five pods attached to the hull. One is right above the power systems on our main rear thruster. All the pods are starting to cut.”

  “Just finish what you’re doing and get back inside,” Finn said.

  “My team’s going outside,” Alice said over inter-ship communications.

  “No,” Stephanie replied over her communicator. “Stay in position, inside the ship. Your team will get killed out there. We don’t all have David’s luck.”

  “Aye,” Alice replied.

  “Sir, guided missiles from the lead destroyer!” Frost said.

  “Turn our shields towards them, “ Jake ordered. “Samurai, take them out before they get here.”

  “Roger,” Carnie replied.

  The small fighter group of seven couldn’t be faulted for their performance. The lead destroyer and the carrier were each launching waves of five guided missiles, some of which wove between a few asteroids before entering the clear space around the Warlord. “They’re jinky,” Quack said from her cockpit. They were able to knock out the first fifteen guided missiles, before one got through.

  To Jake’s surprise, the missile turned into an arc at the last second, avoiding the heavy shields on their lower side, instead striking their weakly shielded dorsal side. The next two to get through did the same, doing no damage to the pods that were attached to the Warlord’s hull, but destroying the shield emitters for the dorsal side of the ship. “They’re after the bridge,” Jake said.

  “I hate this,” Ashley said as she turned the Warlord, the number four thruster activated, giving her the power she needed to get them moving faster towards the closest cluster of asteroids. “We’ll be under cover in a sec.”

  “I can’t get back in,” David said. “Going to thrust off and take my chances until search and rescue can pick me up. Wish me luck.”

  Even while the Warlord was under terrible assault, Jake couldn’t help but wonder at David’s coolness under pressure, and his bravery. His suit’s emergency thrusters got him away from the Warlord, then he engaged his cloak. David would indeed be safe if he could get away from the shrapnel and other agents of destruction.

  “Cover, squadron! Knock those missiles out!” Frost said as several hits registered on the hull.

  “Breach, dorsal section,” Finn announced. “Our main reactor is down. Our main engineering section is open to space. Two fires in adjacent compartments. Putting them out.”

  “Switching to secondary systems, but we can’t keep the shields up, there’s no way to route power to several generators, and we lost some people with that last volley,” Ayan said.

  “Most of our engineering staff,” Finn added.

  “The destroyer and carrier have stopped launching,
their last volley is incoming,” Frost said.

  “Not going to get all of these,” Carnie said. “We’ve taken hits, I’m down to one gun, sorry, Warlord.”

  Jake watched as the fighters, most of which took damage putting themselves between the missiles and the Warlord, sacrificing shields, and in some cases, parts of their ships to keep the missiles at bay, opened fire on the last volley. Fifteen heavy missiles cleared the asteroid field, and three were destroyed by Samurai squadron in the first second, seven in the two seconds that followed, and then six hit them, spiralling around the Warlord, seeking her bridge. Four struck in front of the bridge, the other two exploded through the hull, destroying crew quarters over their heads. Alarms went off, the doors at the rear of the compartment opened. The bridge was losing atmosphere. “How long until we can open a wormhole?” Jake asked, standing and transferring control of as many systems as he could to his command and control unit.

  “Three minutes, nine seconds,” Ashley said, surprised that her seat was retreating from her pilot station. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “We’re abandoning the bridge, falling back to a launch bay,” Jake said. He was relieved to see that he was able to transfer pilot controls to Ashley’s command and control unit, and that the wormhole generator was still charging. “We’re going to have to keep the ship going while we get there.”

  “The first pod’s cutters have broken through,” Stephanie said. “If we blow these off with grenades, we lose all hull integrity in this section.”

  “I don’t care, just kill those boarders,” Jake replied. “And make sure you don’t get sucked out with the atmosphere.”

  “Blowing one off,” Stephanie said.

  Frost opened a hatch at his feet and hurriedly handed rifles out to Ayan, Kadri, Finn and Jake. He also activated a small portable shield bot and took a case of ammunition.

  Jake adjusted his rifle to the maximum setting, he would only be able to fire in bursts, and he only had a hundred and five shots, but they would be powerful enough to cut through most armour.

  “Blew four grenades right at the base of the pod, didn’t do a damn thing, those things are full-thickness welded to the hull, and they have shielding,” Stephanie said. An explosion sounded over her comms and Jake only heard the sounds of gunfire and running.

  “Steph! What is it?” Frost asked.

  “Knights, four Order Knights in each pod,” she replied.

  Chapter 16

  Kambis Orbit

  “Okay, I don’t like this,” Dent said from his fighter where he held formation on Ronin’s port side.

  Ronin finished verifying what he was seeing on his tactical display. “Triton Fleet is on alert, but the Triton isn’t here, neither is the Warlord or any of the new gunships.” The recently organized group of forty two mid-sized ships were running a picket line near Tamber Orbit. Triton Fleet gunships and fighters were assisting, filling in soft sensor areas, where the time delay between scanning and receiving data was too long for larger ships. The Barricade and the British Alliance Fleet numbering three large carriers with three battlecruisers and nine destroyers each along with countless smaller ships watched over it all.

  “I knew we were being misdirected when that British Lieutenant directed us back to the fleet,” Dent said. “They’ve got Tamber locked down, this is not where the action is.”

  “It was a good order, he saw they were on alert, and sent us back,” Ronin said, observing the situation and putting the pieces together. “I’m linking us up with Skyguard Squadron.” He sent a hailing signal to Skyguard command.

  “Slick to Ronin,” addressed the leader of Skyguard.

  “Ronin here. Did we miss the party?” Minh-Chu asked.

  “Triton and the Warlord followed your lead up, the Barricade is our new operational carrier, so don’t scratch that fighter. As big as it is, the Barricade is not a full carrier, it’s got a fifth the capacity of the Triton and her crews are all green.”

  “Slow service, possibly bad service, gotcha. Any word on what they found out there?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Slick replied.

  “Wing Commander Ronin, this is Barricade Flight,” said the familiar voice of Governor Anderson.

  “Finally found a command seat, old man?” Ronin replied.

  “Rushed into service at the last minute, glad I’ve been keeping an eye on this ship all along,” he replied. “Otherwise I wouldn’t know which end was up.”

  “Where do you want me?”

  “The Morrigan could use some fighter support, they’re patrolling the far side of Kambis.”

  “I see it, Slick and I will provide scout support. Any idea what we’re watching for?”

  “Admiral McPatrick was concerned that that carrier group you found was only part of an enemy strategy.”

  “Made to lure our best ships out of orbit so they could strike Tamber,” Ronin said. “Command thinking. Tell me if there’s anything else we can do.”

  “Aye, good hunting, Ronin,” replied Governor Anderson.

  Minh-Chu turned his fighter and thrust in the direction of the Morrigan, the armoured hauler Captain Moira McFadden, Frost’s cousin, had just finished modifying. After she was finished with it, Ronin could only call it a pirate ship. She kept the six main rotary thrusters, but shortened the pylons they sat on so the ship wasn’t such an easy target. She also kept the main thruster at the rear of the ship, but an extra layer of curved armour covered the entire ship.

  Large disruption emitters dotted the bottom of the ship, made to damage shields at relatively short range. A long armoured box ran along one side of the ship where her version of a maxjack was hidden. Numerous arms, cutters and a pair of fortified docking hatches were ready to crack into a ship once it was disabled. The rest of the vessel was dotted with old fashioned energy pulse and railgun turrets.

  “I’d love to see a simulated fight between the Morrigan and the Warlord,” Dent said as they moved in closer. “Wouldn’t like to see a real one though.”

  “That’s a good idea for training the crews,” Minh-Chu said. “I’ll have to pass it by Jake and Moira when I get a chance.”

  “Captain McFadden here,” the Captain of the Morrigan said through their communicators. “I understand you two are our new escort?”

  “That’s right, we’re just getting into position,” Minh-Chu replied.

  “Split and cover our starboard and port sides,” Captain McFadden said. “We’re on our way to the dark side of Kambis.”

  “Expecting trouble?” Dent asked.

  A wormhole opened between the Morrigan and the rest of the fleet, close enough to set off all of Ronin’s energy and collision alarms. “Evasive action! Break to port! Break to port!” he ordered.

  The pair of Uriel fighters thrust out of the way of the large newcomer. It was unlike any ship Minh-Chu had ever seen. “You’re never allowed to ask that question again, Dent,” he said as he and his wingman finished moving out of immediate danger.

  “What is that? I’ve never seen that configuration,” asked Captain McFadden.

  Ronin’s heart sank as the Sol Defence database finished looking up the ship’s profile and transponder. “I have a record in my Target Identification Database. That is the Pontos, a ship made for Citadel, the covert oversight organization for Earth Defence. All information on that ship’s systems is gone, deleted before the records could be updated.”

  “Citadel?” Captain McFadden asked. “What are they doing here?”

  “Citadel ship,” Governor Anderson addressed. “We are currently dealing with a crisis elsewhere in the solar system. I need you to declare friend or foe immediately.”

  Minh-Chu’s tactical display lit up as the Citadel ship’s shields flared, sending a wave of energy in all directions for over thirty five thousand kilometres. “My shields are down to nine percent,” he said.

  “Five,” reported Dent, “five percent.”

  “Twenty eight percent,” Captain McFad
den said, “they are not friends.”

  “Dump your missile bays, head for that old observation station for cover,” Minh-Chu ordered. He and dent opened their missile loading doors and ejected all their munitions in the direction of the Citadel ship. As they made the minimum safe distance from the munitions, they armed the lot of them. The guided munitions fired rockets, dragging their full launcher racks towards the enemy ship. “Hope that provides enough of a distraction.”

  “They’re not targeting us at all,” Dent said.

  “Stop jinxing us!” Ronin replied as his canopy was lit up by several nearby flashes. “Morrigan, are you in need of our assistance?”

  “No, you made the right call, running for cover, that ship is between us, you’d get ripped apart if you tried to cross the distance,” Captain McFadden said. “We are staying clear of your munitions dump stunt though, we could have used some warning.”

  “They’re not doing anything about it,” Dent said. “No countermeasures.”

  Minh-Chu watched as the Morrigan opened fire with her turrets, and the flying bundles of missiles passed by, closing on the Pontos. A barrage of energy bolts struck one of the bundles, detonating it and sending the rest of the missiles off course.

  “Okay, that singed us around the edges,” Captain McFadden said. “There was some antimatter in that load, yeah?”

  “A little, that was one of Dent’s loadouts, mine are a little heavier. There’s an accumulation missile aboard,” Minh-Chu said as he activated it. The guided missiles attached to the bundle were doing a fair job of turning the munitions back towards the enemy ship. His accumulator missile’s reactor began charging up quickly. The Pontos fired several shots at it, but couldn’t quite reach. “A blind spot, right behind that big bastard’s main thrusters. I’m going to have to blow my racks, Captain McFadden, hurry up and get behind this observation post.”

  “Making best speed, Ronin,” replied Captain McFadden. “How big is that accumulator going to build up? What kind of antimatter is it going to make?”