Score one for the Darkness. In some ways, the war had prepared us a lot better for here and now. And we were much more technologically advanced than we were supposed to be.
The ships themselves were distinctly different styles. The Keerah ships were sleek and stylish, the Ralnor blocky and chunky, while the plant ships looked like Christmas trees.
I pulled the trigger again, and the second last ship came apart. I dragged my thoughts back to handling the last one. Missiles were still coming at us from the other two major fleets, still clustered mainly around their own jump points, but the Mosquitos were keeping them well away now. The refugee ships had stopped firing on everyone, and were now heading for the jump point we'd come in from.
"Abigail, open a voice channel to the refugee ships."
"Duh!"
Grace followed the comment with a laugh, as I realized Abigail was now on Custer. I opened the channel myself.
"Refugee ships, this is Admiral Hunter. Do not jump out of this system through the jump point you are now heading for. Wait on this side for me to escort you through. Before you enter my territory, we need to come to an understanding. Acknowledge please."
"Acknowledged," said a male voice. "You will continue to keep missiles off us?"
"Yes. I'll meet you at the jump point once I have this system stabilized."
"Good luck with that."
"Luck is not a factor. Hunter out."
I closed the channel.
"Luck is not a factor?" laughed Annabelle.
I looked around, and could see everyone thought it was funny. I shrugged my shoulders, and went back to planning how to disable the last ship. The target selection mechanism had hotkeys, which I could select with my PC. I’d used about half of them already, with varying groups of weapons, depending on a specific objective for firing them. The one I had been using had everything on it which fired forward, and required a half decent aim to ensure torpedoes were not wasted. I disengaged it, and selected an empty slot.
First step in capturing a ship more or less intact, was to blow down the shields, without doing any significant damage. Until the shields were down, the capture team could not go in. Once the shields were down, you had to keep them down. I'd done this a couple of times before, and with this ship, but the weapons loadout now was completely different.
By the time we crept up to point blank range of the enemy ship, and I'd matched speeds with it, I'd reconfigured as best I could. We were taking constant hits from rear facing guns, and close by missile interceptions. Ironically though, the plant ship was also losing shield integrity slowly from the explosions of its own missiles.
I checked the distance to the jump point out, just to make sure I had time on my side, and it seemed I did. My finger twitched, and the front fixed guns, and the center ten torpedo launchers fired. A second later, and all of the pulses and torpedoes hit. The shields of the plant ship dropped ten percent, and began to recover. I pulled the trigger again, holding it down now, and ten torpedoes launched every second. Every couple of seconds the front guns would fire again as well, as they recharged.
The barrage of just enough to run shields down, continued until they finally vanished. I changed weapon loadout again, and painted one of the obvious airlocks around the ship as the target, before firing off an Image Recognition missile from each anti-fighter launcher. I cycled through each airlock in turn, setting more IR missiles on it than I figured it could take. The side effect was all the missile hits kept the shields down.
At the same time, I pushed the speed slider to the stops again, and BigMother slid over the top of the plant ship, and began to pull ahead. But before the rear of BigMother was in front of the plant ship, I matched speeds again. From below the engine nozzles at the rear, a grav sled slid out, and I carefully dropped us down until the sled touched the ship below. PC button activated, and the sled grabbed hold of the other ship with enough gravities to make sure it couldn't be shaken loose.
I waited for the last of the IR missiles to hit, and PC pressed another button, with BigMother's shields now enveloping both ships. With our shields around the plant ship, it was now unable to raise any shields itself.
Sensors were showing several hull breaches now, where the airlocks were not there anymore.
"George, go."
"Going."
I waited for Custer to undock, but nothing happened. A few moments later, I saw a dropship launch from the rear flight deck. It maneuvered to avoid all the thrust coming from both ships, and settled next to one of the missing airlocks.
"Boss?" asked BA. "You want prisoners?"
I glanced to my right, and four heads were emphatically shaking their heads. I knew what BA was asking. She wanted to know if they simply decompressed the ship getting in, or if they needed to get in without killing anything. The latter would involve making temporary airlocks, and they had the necessary on the dropship, but it would slow things down. And we had no real idea what we were dealing with here.
"Only if they surrender. The consensus of advice here is no prisoners, but don’t kill if you don’t have to."
"You'll have to," muttered Roo.
"I heard that boss. Noted. Going in now."
Five
George didn’t bother trying to dock.
He simply positioned the dropship next to one of the breached airlocks, and the team jumped over. I noticed Jane's combat suit was with them. She operated it as almost a separate entity, and because she didn’t need to be inside, it had power generation and other capabilities the normal suits didn’t. Hence while the others carried a single meson pulse rifle, Jane carried two. She normally carried streamers rather than pulsers, but inside a ship, the streamer was likely to cause more damage than necessary, and we did want the ship as intact as possible.
"No George," I said.
"Party pooper!" he muttered, but with team coms on, I heard it as if he'd said it in my ear.
I didn’t need to see him to know he was already out of his seat and heading to his own combat suit.
"Come back, and be ready to deploy Custer instead."
"Yep."
By now, BigMother had brought the plant ship to a stop, in spite of it still thrusting fully trying to get away, but we were still taking the odd shield hit from missiles coming from the other two fleets, which were being taken out by our point defense. I wasn’t going to let the dropship stay out where it was vulnerable. In fact, Custer would also be vulnerable. I made a decision.
"Captains Bronson and Young."
"Sir?"
"Sir?"
Both were on the other side of the jump point.
"Bring Relentless and Defiant through please. Defensive role only. I want you to screen the refugees heading for the jump point, and Custer when she gets there. Be very careful of letting missiles get too close, as even your shields won't take too many hits. You'll need to take over mosquito launching duties from BigMother as soon as I drop off Custer."
"On our way," said Annette Bronson, who having the larger ship, was technically the senior captain.
Both she and Miriam had started out as fighter pilots. Annette was the senior captain, as joining my forces earlier, she'd been moved up to a corvette first. Miriam had been an American Wing Commander up until very recently, before being promoted to captain a cruiser. Both flew like BigMother did, hence me using pilots as captains.
George reentered the flight deck, and I waited for him to land on the elevator, and start into the ship itself. One side of the bridge screens now showed the cam images from the team now on the plant ship, as they made their way into the damaged section.
Two white dots appeared on the HUD and navmap at the jump point. Relentless was a dreadnaught. The same length as BigMother, but the firepower of two battleships. Defiant was a super-cruiser. When looked at from the front or rear, both looked like a cross. They were in fact both two ships merged together to form one, with four superstructures instead of two. Relentless had battleship three gun turrets as
her main armament, while Defiant had cruiser turrets as her main ones. All of the turrets on both ships could fire in any direction. And both had more than enough mosquito launchers to cover the refugee ships. As I watched, both ships accelerated in slightly different directions, to come around the refugee ships from a different angle.
I opened a new voice channel.
"Hunter to refugee ships. You are about to be joined by two of my ships who will take over missile defense from my ship. I repeat, do not jump out until I authorize it. Acknowledge."
"Acknowledged."
The channel closed. I eased the speed slider ahead, and slowly took BigMother and her prize back up to normal cruising speed, turning back towards the jump point we came through.
The team had reached the first closed bulkhead. We watched, volume turned down, while the team positioned themselves. A beam came from Jane, and she cut out the entire hatch from its bulkhead. Correction, at least one of Jane's guns was a meson streamer. I'd expected Alana to blow the hatch, but Jane's method was cleaner. The team started moving through the new hole, as soon as the explosive decompression ended, and loose stuff stopped flying out.
"Not too shabby," said Hobbes.
I ignored him. Annabelle didn’t.
"Would your people have done any better?"
"My people wouldn’t have tried to board a plant ship. We're not that stupid."
"Mine either," added Roo. "Although back when we first came into contact, they did."
"How did it go?" asked Grace.
"Badly for both sides."
"Why?" asked Annabelle.
"No idea. This was millennia ago. I expect your level of tech wasn’t available then, and soft suits are vulnerable to the plants. No-one has bothered to try in the last few centuries, as far as I know."
"Same here," said Hobbes. "We long since worked out taking prisoners was just stupid, and we stopped trying. Take them out as fast as possible is the thing."
I was only half paying attention.
"Got it," said Jane suddenly, and simultaneously, the plant ship's engines died.
On the cams, the team came to a halt, and appeared to be bracing themselves. The hatch ahead of them opened on its own, and the compartment beyond decompressed. On an external cam, which now popped up a screen, the plant ship appeared to be venting through all its remaining airlocks. BigMother picked up speed now the plant ship wasn’t fighting us anymore.
"What just happened?" asked Syrinx.
The other three were looking equally bewildered.
"I now have control of the plant ship," said Jane. "I turned off the engines, and opened it to space."
"Any live crew left?" I asked.
"No. And I can't find any mention of space suits."
"Are you sure the crew are dead?" asked Hobbes. "They are after all a plant, and not an animal, so don’t show up on detectors designed for animal life."
"Is this a crew member?" said Amanda, and we all looked at her screen.
Ahead of her was what looked like a small tree, topped by a large flower. It looked like any plant did after the frost got it. Amanda touched it with her armoured hand, and parts of it broke off.
"Yes," said Roo. "A dead one. Occasionally we find one like this in the debris of a destroyed ship."
"Is that dirt?" asked Grace.
The cam view shifted. Amanda pulled on a more solid looking part of the body, and it resisted for a moment, before lifting. Where feet would be on animals, we saw roots, and there was indeed a layer of dirt which had been hiding the roots.
"Bag and tag," I ordered.
"Salvage droid on the way," said Jane.
"Confirmed," said Amanda, and several of the team giggled.
'Confirmed' was Jane's way of accepting orders. The rest of them used it as a joke, or a sort of role reversal. At times, it was funny. For now, I had too much on my mind to concern myself with the byplay.
We were still taking missile fire from the Keerah and Ralnor fleets, as they were from each other. The two refugee capital ships were approaching the jump point, and my two ships were now in a screening position, and already doing the mosquito interception of missiles aimed their way. Nothing was getting past them.
The dynamics of the system still fascinated me. Both fleets were in defensive formations around their own jump points. But the jump points themselves were in missile range of each other. This was so different to normal, I wondered how it'd come about. The only speculation I came up with was the sun had at some time gone supernova, blasting everything into space dust, and it must have happened billions of years ago, so by now, nothing was left. Over time, as even space dust vanished into deep space, the system 'bubble' had collapsed, bringing the jump points so close together. But this was just a guess.
The system seemed to be a crossroad point in local space, where all three dominant species had space attached through it. But the dynamics meant just entering the system brought you under fire immediately. Thoughts popped in, but I put them aside. The question for now was what to do next.
I kept pondering as we approached the jump point, and the ships now waiting there. The fighters had all docked with their mothership now, and I gave it some attention. It was a perfect circle around the middle line, and almost a classic old earth UFO shape. But obviously large enough for large fighter launch tubes, and a recovery deck. The missile launchers dotted all over it were obvious, but if it had guns as well, I couldn’t see where they were. For now though, it didn’t need them, as my ships were protecting them fully.
I brought BigMother to a stop, and withdrew our shields from the plant ship. The grav sled detached, and slid back into the hull. I moved us away.
"You can dock with the plant ship now George."
"Going."
General Custer shot away from BigMother, and began to maneuver to dock at one of the intact airlocks. As soon as she did, her own shields began to cover the plant ship as well, even though Custer was a much smaller ship. The shields wouldn’t take much, but they were enough for a near miss. But I didn’t think any missile was going to get through the mosquito net my two big ships were providing.
I turned BigMother back towards the middle of the system, and moved us away from the defensive position. The missiles from the other two fleets adjusted to the new position.
I cast a glance at Hobbes and Roo, but didn’t see anything useful in their expressions. Both looked unhappy. I opened a voice channel to both fleets.
"This is Admiral Hunter to all ships in this system. I'm not here to make enemies. I've only involved myself so far to protect refugees. I have no designs on your space. The jump point behind me is protected on the other side, and once we leave, I will be contactable by opening a channel anywhere in this system. The question is, do you stop firing on me so I can leave in peace, or do you continue to fire on me, forcing me to make you stop."
I saw both Hobbes and Roo cringe, and figured this had been the wrong thing to say.
"What say you?"
Missiles continued to be fired, so I figured I had an answer, and closed the channel.
I turned to Syrinx, and explained what I wanted.
Six
BigMother came out of the rift at a slow speed, right behind the Ralnor flagship.
I pulled my trigger, and about a third of the ship vanished. The rest began to tumble away. The Ralnor were good, and we took some solid hits to the shields before the grey rift opened, and I pushed the ship through it. We came out in the middle of the system, in a place with nearby debris.
Shields were below fifty percent, and I waited for them to regenerate. It was a good lesson in not taking on a Ralnor fleet unless you had total surprise. Without the magic rifts, we'd have never made it into range.
The only reason we hadn't taken more damage from the plant fleet was they were strung out pursuing the refugees. Had they been bunched up as a functional fleet, things would undoubtedly have been different.
Grace started chuckling, and I l
ooked for what amused her.
"Anyone get the idea they're expecting us now?" asked Annabelle.
True enough, the Keerah fleet was changing positions, with the kill slot of the flagship now being covered by whatever their main guns were.
Jane said nothing, but a new screen popped up, showing where Syrinx should put us next time. I turned to the magician, and nodded my agreement.
The titans had recharged already, but I waited until the shields were back up past ninety percent. It wasn’t a matter of power, but a lack of emitters for what we needed. Fighting the Darkness had been death by a thousand knives, and our emitters were still based on this. Now we had the opposite where single hits counted. Just one of the things on my new list of things to do when this was over.
"Let's get this last one done."
The grey rectangle appeared, I goosed us through, and BigMother appeared in front of the flagship. My finger twitched, everything fired, and a new grey rectangle appeared, which we dove straight through, appearing once again back near Relentless.
The Keerah ship had suffered worse damage than the Ralnor one had, but was still in position.
"They stopped launching," said Grace.
"Who did?" I asked.
"Everyone."
Within five minutes, all the remaining missiles still in flight in the system, had been taken out. We sat there, waiting to see if anything would happen. When nothing did, I turned to Syrinx.
"Can you create a rift, but put the other end where they can't see it?"
She nodded, and the grey rectangle appeared in front of us again. I held off actually moving the ship though.
"That did the trick," said Annabelle, grinning.
Both fleets were turning for their jump points. One ship in each seemed to be taking their damaged one in tow, and within a minute, the first of them were jumping out. The grey rectangle faded, unused. It took the Keerah five more minutes to jump out with their damaged flagship, and the Ralnor another two after that.
Hunter's Terminus Page 3
