Their target hadn’t been destroyed outright, but the ship had reduced its speed drastically and was veering off its original course. The cloud surrounding it had thinned somewhat, revealing a coarsely-shaped cylindrical shape with a large opening on its bow.
I hope that’s not a weapons system, Lisbeth thought, half-jokingly; the hole on the alien ship’s nose was over seventy meters in diameter. That would make it the largest-caliber gun in Starfarer history.
More data came in. The ‘cloud’ surrounding the target appeared to be some sort of drone swarm, microscopic machines held together by a magnetic field. The artificial microbes had somehow absorbed some of the energy of her high-energy graviton cannon, each acting as a sponge of sorts. That was why the five-shot volley hadn’t inflicted more damage on the target. The drone cloud also interfered with sensor readings.
“We’ll have to give them a couple of passes next time,” she told the squadron. “Jump, shoot and scoot, then rinse and repeat.”
She passed on her attack plan to Fleet Command for approval. As an independent task force, the Death Head Squadron’s immediate superior was Admiral Givens herself. It wasn’t a comfortable situation for a newly-minted O-5. Even after dealing with entities one could accurately describe as ‘godlike,’ Lisbeth still didn’t feel at easy interacting with top-brass types.
A curt ‘Approved’ was the only reply. Just as well.
Setting up the warp-transit plan took the Corpse-Ships navigation systems a whole thirty seconds, less than a third the time of the best human computers. Using ancient alien super-tech had its benefits, even if it came with a hefty price tag. Even warp fighter pilots had found working with Kraxan equipment an often-painful ordeal.
Transition.
There were a few more Warplings around this time, but they were keeping their distance. Smart of them.
“Like sharks smelling blood,” Jenkins commented, uncharacteristically sober. “Guys, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Our cause is righteous, our enemy deserving of his fate,” Preacher replied. “There is nothing to fear.”
Emergence.
The squadron popped in, locked onto another cloud-ship, and regaled it with a five-gun salute.
This time, their targets shot back.
In the three seconds that transpired between emergence and transition, Lisbeth caught a glimpse of several impossibly-bright streams of fire heading in their general direction.
Transition.
“What the fuck was that?” Jenkins shouted. “My shields are gone!”
It was worse than that. Gunboat-Four had taken heavy structural damage. The Marauder status sensors generated a screeching mental alarm. Lisbeth shuddered; the psychic sound resonated like a death scream, and that meant the damage was severe, possibly critical.
“Can you RTB, Jenkins?”
Their warp plan called for a second jump near their targets, not a return trip to the Laramie. Changing course in the middle of a warp transit wasn’t impossible while using Kraxan tech, only very difficult.
“Dunno. Think my crate’s coming apart,” he said, in the tense, curt tones of a professional who knows everything is going to hell fast.
“Grinner?”
“On it, boss,” Genovisi replied. She reached towards the damaged gunboat with both her ship and her mind, in effect taking the damaged bird under tow. “I’ll bring him home.”
“All right. The rest of you, we’re going on the second firing pass. Let’s try to shave time-to-transit a little bit, shall we?”
“Roger that.”
Emergence.
The visual sensors showed lances of plasma erupting from the cloud-ships, still aimed at the spot they had vacated a couple of seconds before: six hundred thousand kilometer-long lances.
The three remaining ships of the squadron fired on their original target and jumped a fraction of a second before the enemy could react and fire at them. It was close, though: Lisbeth saw more fast-approaching streams of flame before she escaped into warp.
Transition.
“Holy shit,” Kong shouted.
“Nothing holy about it,” Preacher said. “I clocked those plasma flares. They were moving at fifty percent light-speed.”
Slower than standard plasma guns, which clocked in at around point-eight of c. Still nothing to trifle with.
“Hold on,” Lisbeth said. Her warp-attuned senses were picking activity in null-space. “The enemy is opening some sort of warp conduits and…”
She picked up several Warplings were feasting on something. Or rather, somebody, several hundred sophonts, somewhere near the alien ships.
“… and they are using blood sacrifices to empower them.”
* * *
“Four light-seconds to nearest enemy elements, Admiral.”
That gave Third Fleet half an hour before it reached maximum effective range for the its main guns. Which also meant it could be engaged by the enemy’s devastating weapon system. Half an hour to decide whether to stay and fight or turn tail and escape.
Trust the Lampreys to find and make an alliance with another species of Warp Demons, Sondra Givens thought. I wonder if the Imperium approves.
The admiral went over the impossible sensor readings one more time, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Zhang’s hurried verbal report. It all seemed impossible, but the impossible weapons had crippled one of the allegedly-invulnerable gunboats, and in thirty-three minutes or so her battle wall would experience them first-hand. As unbelievable as it might be, the Marine pilot’s theory fit the available evidence.
The unknown aliens didn’t have the power plants necessary to create a seventy-meter wide beam of high-yield plasma and project it over two light-seconds: nothing that traveled in space did. In theory, one could string together enough reactors to generate the energy needed, but the engineering involved was beyond impractical and well into the realm of the impossible. What the cloud-ship designers had done was something else altogether.
The weapon was a large warp generator that reached into the nearest star and ‘scooped’ a large volume of its corona, directing the hyper-heated gas out of the mouth of their gateway and along the path of an ionized trail which provided the aiming point for the system. The power requirements for the warp aperture and the guidance system were large, but only a tiny fraction of what would be required to create a plasma beam that size. It wasn’t as elaborate or elegant as the Fire Wall the Death Heads could create, but damn effective.
The only problem with that weapon concept was the same that people who saw warp systems as simple teleportation often forgot: a living, thinking being needed to be on the emergence point of the warp transit for it to work at all. Every time those ships fired, aware, thinking beings were being sent on a one-way trip into the local sun.
Which, while technically possible, shouldn’t work, either. Ever since discovering warp technology, humans had tried to use it in new and inventive ways. Deploying suicide bombers had been one of the earliest ideas; the US had abandoned such experiments fairly quickly, but the Pan-Asians, perhaps remembering the kamikazes that Imperial Japan had fielded during the last desperate days of WWII, had kept trying until it became apparent they were simply killing men and sacrificing equipment without achieving anything. People who knew they were going on a one-way trip didn’t come out. People who were deceived into going on a one-way trip didn’t come out, either. Transit losses for suicide missions approached one hundred percent. Even Marine boarding missions with less than a one-in-ten chance of success suffered those loss levels. Nobody in the known galaxy had a conclusive explanation for the phenomenon, although there were dozens of competing theories.
The cloud-ship people had figured a way around those limitations, as proven by their ability to shoot streams of star-fire at their enemies.
“Gunboat-Four is going to need several hours of repair work, but the rest of the squadron is ready to go,” Colonel Zhang reported.
The Death Head Squadron ha
d damaged one of the cloud-ships and destroyed another, at the cost of one crippled gunboat. That exchange ratio was unsustainable.
“I believe we can cut our time between transits enough to avoid additional hits,” the Marine pilot went on. “Those plasma beams are huge, but they’re pretty slow.”
“Can you be certain, Colonel?” Sondra said. “The enemy’s gunnery seems to be improving as well. Even your hybrid shield systems are clearly not enough to survive a direct hit from those plasma beams. I’d rather not risk your ships for now. For one, I need you to handle any Sun-Blotter missile swarms the Lampreys send our way. You will stand by for the time being.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
Sondra turned to her Tactical Officer. “Got the revised estimates yet, Reynolds?”
“Yes, ma’am. The latest figures are the best we can do. Unfortunately, the regular sensors on Gunship-Four were literally burned out by the hit it took, and our Kraxan-to-standard sensor conversions are rudimentary at best, but the estimates should be accurate within an acceptable margin.”
“And?”
“A direct hit will wash over the warp shields of any ship smaller than a battleship. Damage will depend on force field strength, but will be very likely to be severe on cruiser-class vessels, and critical on lighter classes. On an unshielded target, it’s an all-but-certain kill or disabling shot for all medium or lighter classes. Except for the ablative foam armor, which will be stripped away but keep the hull relatively undamaged. For the first plasma strike, that is.”
“In other words, the first hit is free, but don’t get hit twice.”
“Pretty much, Admiral.”
“We’ll have to make sure they don’t get more than one shot, then.”
“The energy stream is also slower than conventional beam weapons. Evasive maneuvers will greatly reduce those weapons’ accuracy.”
“And reduce our own, although to a lesser degree,” she said. “Very well. We will proceed as planned, except we will start firing main guns at three light-seconds. Only her dreadnoughts had the range to score telling hits that far, but she might as well start getting her licks in early, and that extra range would render the warped plasma beam weapons even less effective. They needed to destroy those cloud-ships as quickly as possible.
There were grim nods all along the CIC. Sondra’s orders focused most of Third Fleet’s firepower on the cloud-ships. That would leave the Lampreys able to volley missiles and energy weapons with relative impunity – or so would they think. The Death Heads would attack the Lampreys, staying as far away from the cloud-ships as possible. And the gunboats wouldn’t be alone.
The Warp Marines would launch a mass boarding action against the Lhan Arkh vessels as well.
* * *
“Oh, man,” Grampa Gorski said in a small voice as Russell’s fireteam conducted a final gear check.
“Relax, Grampa,” Gonzo told him. “We’ve got alien super-tech on our side. Next best thing to having Jesus as our wingman.”
Russell resisted the impulse to tell Gonzo to cool it on the blasphemous talk. That was the sort of thing he’d done back when Nacle was part of the crew; the Mormon kid had been good people but didn’t like hearing that sort of stuff. Neither Grampa nor Russell himself cared, though. Funny how things reminded you of someone’s absence. No telling who’d be the next one to be missed, or if it’d be Russell who would be fondly remembered by any survivors.
He shrugged. Remembered, maybe, but few people would think fondly of him. Gonzo, sure, but he didn’t think Gorski cared that much. Russell wasn’t the sort of guy who made best friends with people. The thought didn’t bother him too much. Very few things did.
“It’s all good,” he said. The fireteam was all suited up, all the suit seals were good, power packs were at full, and the extra gear they were carrying was all stowed safely and well-balanced on their backs. You made warp drops with everything you needed; you didn’t get many resupply runs during boarding actions.
“We’re gonna fuck some shit up,” Gonzo said, trying to sound gung-ho and almost pulling it off.
“Craziest shit in the universe,” Grampa commented, not even trying. “Two ships traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light, and we’re gonna be dropped from one to the other. Crazy.”
“You want safe duty, you’re in the wrong outfit, dabrah. Shoulda joined the Guard or the Army.”
“Save the shit talk for the enemy,” Russell told Gonzo. No sense antagonizing the old timer, who was griping about it but wasn’t backing out, which was all you could ask of anyone. Gorski was also weighed down by close to five hundred pounds of gear; the flame thrower Russell was bringing to the party went through power packs in a hurry; Grampa was toting two charging units on top of dozens of spare packs. He could barely clear the doors connecting the armory to the catapult compartment, which were taller and wider than anything else in the assault ship for exactly that purpose.
“We’re dropping in five,” Sergeant Kruger from Charlie-One announced. Russell’s fireteam and two short squads from First Platoon were waiting for their turn on the catapult. Twenty-five leathernecks at a time; word was they’d be dropping three battalion equivalents on eight Echo Tango ships. Biggest ship-to-ship drop since long before Russell joined the Corps. Making history was nice and all, but he’d been doing a little too much of it lately. Keep that up and sooner or later he was going to be history.
“Step onto the platform,” a bored-sounding bubblehead petty officer said.
“I’ll step onto your mother, cabron,” Gonzo muttered under his breath but he and the rest of the Marines did as they were told.
The USS Mattis shuddered. Something had winged their ride.
“Oh, man,” Grampa said.
“Easy, Gorski. We’re about to get off this boat, aren’t we?”
“Be nice if it was still around when we get back.”
“Worst case, we’ll take over the Lampreys’ ride. Think of the salvage bonus.”
Grampa just tilted his head, but the message came through: you had to be alive to spend a salvage bonus. Russell just shrugged again.
“Drop in ten, nine, eight…”
Russell took a deep breath, and let it go slowly as the countdown completed.
“One.”
Transition.
The ride was fairly smooth for a two light-second drop; the new tech Russell and the other Marines had helped liberate at Redoubt-Five was working like charm. He only saw one warp ghost the whole trip, the bastard he’d killed back when he was a snot-nosed teenager; the dead kid was grinning and drawing his finger across his throat, which opened up and started spilling blood just the way it had when Russell had done it for real. It didn’t bother him; it hadn’t bothered him when it’d happened, either, not much.
Emergence.
The warp aperture had torn a chunk from one bulkhead, but otherwise the place didn’t look all that different than the interior of the Mattis, except the doors were a little wider than normal. Russell knew that the Lampreys’ lights came in a reddish and fainter wavelength than what humans liked, but his helmet filtered them and made everything look fine, just as his sealed suit made sure he didn’t keel over dead after breathing the toxic brew that passed for atmo among the Ass-Faces.
“Right on target,” Sergeant Kruger said. “Move it, people!”
Four grunts from First went through the door first. Enemy alarms only began to sound after they made it all the way into the passageway; the Lampreys hadn’t been expecting that move. Always nice to drop in unexpectedly on people you intended to kill.
The point man opened fire a moment later: a weapon mount at one end of the corridor sputtered smoke and died before it could lock on a target. The three-round burst was followed by a volley from two other Marines, using squash-head grenades to burst open the door ahead of them. After that it was Russell and Gonzo’s turn.
Gonzo was on the Alsie this time; he filled the compartment with frag grenades. Russell g
ave it one pump with his plasma-thrower. Nobody wearing less than fully-shielded battle armor could survive that double dose of hell. There was a secondary explosion, adding insult to injury. That was the only sound he heard over the roar of the flames; any Lampreys in there didn’t even have a chance to scream.
A couple Marines went in as soon as the plasma died down.
“Clear.”
Russell and Gonzo followed them after Grampa replaced Russell’s power pack and put the partially-spent one on the charger on his back, cursing when he nearly overbalanced under the full load. The compartment’s walls looked partially melted, although most of that was stowed equipment, secondary piping and whatever was left of its occupants; the plasma charges were carefully designed not to melt bulkhead-grade materials except under continuous, focused streams.
“That one,” Sergeant Kruger ordered, pointing at one of two other doors leading out. Gonzo opened it with a three-round burst. Russell saw a Lamprey trying to run for it at the end of the suddenly-unmasked passageway, but the grunts on overwatch stitched the tango before it got very far. The ET hadn’t been wearing even a light force-field; the plasma-tipped bullets tore him to bits.
“Move it, ladies,” the squad leader said. “Things to do and tangos to kill.”
They moved.
Seven
“You’re cleared for launch, Death Heads.” The space traffic controller sounded a little bit frantic.
Commander Deborah ‘Grinner’ Genovisi couldn’t blame him. Everybody who wasn’t too busy with their job was aware that a flight of sixty-five thousand missiles was headed towards Third Fleet. It was up to the now-reduced gunboat squadron to make that Sun-Blotter Swarm go away, and Deborah wasn’t sure they were up to the job.
Transition.
Null-space, as viewed through the cockpit of a Corpse-Ship, was a very different place than the one Deborah had grown used to. Here, it appeared as an ever-shifting liquid medium in a thousand different hues. The bright panorama was no less alien or dangerous, of course, and out in the ‘distance’ she could see more Warplings were gathering. Most of them were busy feeding on the willing sacrifices the cloud-ship people were sending their way, but a growing number was beginning to gravitate towards the gunboat squadron.
Havoc of War (Warp Marine Corps Book 5) Page 10
