A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  The rest of the squadron looped around, converging from numerous different vectors, evading and firing at any of the pirate starfighters that tried to get at them. A pair of blaster shots from one of the Aploras caused the Sepulcre to break off, lumbering away from the furball as quickly as its engines could get it away from the fighting. The pilot wasn’t finished, most likely he would be looping around and would come back into the fighting after only a few seconds.

  “We’ll keep the scary eggs away from you, Korqath,” the Twin Nova lead pilot called over the comms. Korqath hissed but didn’t otherwise rise to the bait.

  As he angled his fighter around to face the approaching gunboats, he pressed a control to bring up the image of the enemy vessels on his HUD. The gunboats were flat, roughly shaped like scarab beetles, with a trio of medium laser cannons in the bow as well as racks of missiles on the dorsal side. They were slower than the fighters, even the Sepulcres, but scans indicated that they possessed shields, a level or two tougher than the output of the shield nodes on the Vision. They would take a lot of killing.

  “Aploras, break and attack,” he ordered. “Force them back. I don’t want them getting near to the bigger ships.” He pushed up the throttle and went straight at the lead gunboat. Depressing the triggers, he sent a salvo of laser bolts stinging the shields of the enemy ship. With a quick maneuver, his fighter flashed past the larger ship and he saw that two more of the Aploras made similar runs.

  “We’re wearing them down, Lead,” one of his pilots said. “But those shields are strong!”

  “We’re better,” Korqath snapped, bringing his fighter around. “Hukriss, Karno, with me. We’re going to hit that one together.”

  There were a series of clicks on the comms in acknowledgement. The three manta rays circled around on different vectors, but once they were all locked onto the same fighter, Hukriss launched a missile while Korqath and Karno peppered the ship with their cannons. A nuclear fireball blossomed as the gunboat fired, detonating the missile just short of the front of the ship. The energy of the blast diffused slightly, but not enough. The nuclear energy washed over the ship’s forward shields, making them flare and the follow up salvo from the fighters caused serious spotting.

  “One more pass,” Korqath ordered. “Look alive,” he said, dodging his fighter under the incoming fire from another of the gunships.

  “Fire’s getting a bit heavy, Lead,” Karno observed. “I have a shot.”

  “Take it!” the zheen snapped. “We don’t have time to szizzkz around.” He brought his own fighter’s nose around, planting the targeting reticule on the ship’s ventral side. He saw that the other Vision snapped off a shot from both its wing cannons and hit the gunboat in its forward section. The ship shrugged off the blasts and returned fire.

  The medium laser cannons pounded the Zlk’vzn fighter, shredding the ship’s shields and punctured the fighter’s port wing. The pilot Karno tried to get clear, but a second shot punched through the fuselage and the small ship vaporized.

  “Karno’s been hit!” Hukriss shouted, his voice undercut by hissing and clicking. “He’s gone!”

  Both of the fighters vectored in on their target, energy weapons blazing. The gunboat’s guns opened up and a quartet of missiles rushed off the racks.

  “Turn!” Hukriss bellowed over the comms. His fighter roared away from the gunboat, but Korqath didn’t break off. Putting his fighter into a barrel roll, the zheen jerked the stick around in a random maneuver, causing the ship to jink crazily but in a very narrow cone. It kept him on target for the gunboat but with his cannons firing continuously, he obliterated a pair of missiles heading straight toward him.

  “Firing!” he cried, launching two missiles from his dwindling supply. Only six of the weapons left. The missiles closed the distance in less than a second and exploded against the paper thin shields of the gunboat. He yanked the stick to port and forward, diving “down” below the gunboat as the nuclear fireballs blossomed. The energy splashed over his shields and damage alarms blared. If he was a human, he would have squinted his eyes against the flare of the energy bursts. As he wasn’t his antennae curled as he flinched away. A few seconds later, he was through, his fighter a bit singed but still functional. He flipped a few switches, redirecting some energy away from his weapons to increase his shield recharge.

  “Nice shot, Commander!” Hukriss said, his voice clicking. “You nailed the bastard.”

  “Stow it, Hukriss,” Korqath ordered, his voice harsh. He’d never flown that close to a nuclear explosion before. He was a bit shaken up, though thankfully his fighter had gone through it relatively unharmed. “We’ve got a lot of work left to do.”

  “Copy that, Lead,” the other pilot said, more clicking following afterward.

  “Starboard shields are holding,” the shields technician called. “64 percent, Captain.”

  Nazan winced. The attack had started out so well. But after the destruction of the first pirate corvette, the other corvette captains had gotten overconfident and their whole unit cohesion had broken down. Angara and Eridain broke off from the rest of the group and moved off to attack one of the other pirate ships, but as they did so, three of the gunboats swooped in and launched a flurry of missiles. Eridain’s railguns opened up with a storm of slugs for missile defense and the ship’s electronic warfare system started howling and strobing, anything to knock the missiles’ guidance systems off their intended target. Three of the missiles wandered off course and two more were hit by the fusillade of metal slugs.

  But the remaining six slammed into Eridain’s shields and exploded. The FP corvette shuddered and the force of the blows was so serious that the ship was knocked off its original course. Angara was too busy exchanging fire with the pirate corvette to assist, and all of Eridain’s forward weapons and turret laser cannons were firing at the corvette to help with holding off the missile attack.

  “Eridain’s starboard shields are down. They’re venting from three serious hull breaches,” the sensor tech called, sounding seriously distressed. “Their main power is out.”

  “Damn it,” Tariq swore quietly. “Guns, do you have my target?”

  “Ready, Captain,” the tactical officer replied smoothly, her voice eager.

  “Fire!”

  Verrikoth watched the battle from his seat on the Nemesis, watching the vicious fight going on between his light units and his fighters. The locals were tough and disciplined, he mused. Or at least those starfighter pilots were. After that first assault by the local corvettes, which had blasted Typhon’s corvette to metal slivers, the local corvettes seemed to lose all sense of leadership. One of their ships took a massive hit from some of his, perhaps the leader of their group has been aboard that ship and that was what happened.

  But the more he stared at the plot, as Nemesis drew closer to the battle, the more he realized that the ships just simply weren’t working well as a unit. Individually, it seemed that their captains and crews were skilled and brave, but they didn’t have much concept of how to fight as a unit.

  His antennae twitched in amusement. His own ships would get a bit battered, and he might lose one or two of the lighter units. His hissed lightly. He wouldn’t mind losing most of Typhon’s ships and crews. The wolf was a terror, but he was also a threat. Verrikoth had brought him along because he would be worth his weight in precious metals if that battlecruiser showed up. The wolf, unlike many of the various pirate scum who commanded their own little fleets here in the Argos Cluster, wouldn’t run. Even against overwhelming odds like that, his light cruiser and a few corvettes against a battlecruiser, Typhon would go down, kicking and clawing and biting. Verrikoth needed and respected tenacity and skill like that. But if the wolf would be cut down a peg or two… well… he wouldn’t complain too loudly.

  It wouldn’t be a long stretch, perhaps nine or ten minutes before Nemesis would be close enough to engage with the rest of the fleet. The light units had ranged far in front and perhaps he should have h
eld them in a bit closer to keep his firepower concentrated, but he’d gotten cocky. He’d thought his fighters would have made a better show of themselves, but losing nearly all of his Sepulcres in a single salvo of missiles from the local ships had been something he hadn’t expected. He’d assumed the boxy ships would have done a bit better than that. With nearly half of his fighter screen obliterated, in fact more than half at this point as he watched two more of Sokann’s Muons get shot down, the local fighters were moving in to hit his gunboats and the corvettes. They might be less likely to do so if the cruisers had been there to cover them.

  He clenched a fist, growling slightly. “Commander.”

  Tyler’s head snapped up and over, spearing the pirate lord with his gaze. “Yes, my Lord?”

  “Increasse our sspeed. Our lighter unitz are getting cut apart.”

  Jensen Tyler looked confused. “My Lord? We’ve lost one of the corvettes, yes, but so have the defenders. And our ships are still fighting as a group, not the undisciplined rabble that the locals have fallen into.” He sneered. “We’ve already seriously damaged one of their ships and it looks like,” he said, gesturing to the display, “They’re about to lose another.”

  Verrikoth grunted, his antennae twitching. “Yes, I ssee that. But I want uss in fasster. I know that Typhon izn’t going to sstand watching hiz sshipss get torn apart and to be honest, the whole point of thiss raid waz to get in and out quickly, loozing a few sshipss as possible.” Now he hissed. “I’ve already lost too many trained pilotss. I do not want to looze any more sshipss.”

  “Understood, sir.” Tyler hesitated for only a moment more. He turned to the pilot. “Helm, increase speed to flank.”

  Right on cue, as the ship’s acceleration increased, the comms officer spoke up. “My Lord, I have General Typhon on the line. He is demanding to speak with you.”

  “Put him through.” Verrikoth sat a bit straighter in his chair as his forward display came to life, showing the black-furred lupusan. “General.”

  “How much longer are you going to delay?” the wolf snarled. “We dawdle out here at this low cruising speed and in the meantime our light units are getting chewed apart!”

  “Calm yoursself, General,” Verrikoth told him, his voice serene. “We are increassing sspeed now. Try to keep up.” He pressed a control and cut the connection before the lupusan could say anything. The zheen’s mouthparts writhed in amusement as he saw Typhon’s look of slight bafflement because of his statement.

  “Get damage control down there! Seal that breach!” Nazan bellowed over the cacophony of alarms. That last hit had breached the aft shields and cut a huge hole in the hull. They hadn’t lost any engines, thank the stars, but two of the plasma conduits were ruptured and power was down.

  “Yes, Captain!” the engineering watch replied, speaking into his microphone.

  “Captain,” the helmsman spoke up. “Engines one and two are offline because of the power loss.”

  “Primary plasma conduit on the starboard side was ruptured with that last hit, Captain,” the engineering watch interrupted.

  “We’re down to half our acceleration, sir,” the helmsman said.

  “They’re coming back around,” Alys growled, hammering the keys on her console.

  One of the pirate corvettes came in, its heavy lasers blazing. Cavalier rocked from the hits, the whole ship shook.

  “One of the corvettes is locked on,” Alys called from tactical. “And it looks like one of the gunboats is swinging around to come after us.”

  Nazan grimaced, turning his head to the side. “Alys, lock on with any missile tubes we’ve got left. Let ‘em rip!”

  The woman’s fingers flew over the tactical console, setting up a firing solution. “All three tubes still active, fire control is still online. I’ve got a lock on the corvette.”

  “Fire!” Tariq snarled and Alys stabbed a control.

  The starboard missile tubes all belched out a missile and an instant later, their drives kicked in. It took less than seventeen seconds for them to close the distance from the Cavalier to the pirate corvette. The enemy corvette sprayed the area with energy fire, clipping one which sent it off course and exploded out into open space. An energy bolt hit the second missile perfectly head on and it detonated. But the third missile got through, slamming into the pirate ship’s shields, which flared under the hit.

  “A hit!” Alys said, but her eyes never left her displays, her fingers held steady.

  “Shift targeting,” Tariq ordered. “Target that corvette, all available weapons. Helm, roll ship. Try and put the less damaged side facing them.”

  “That’s going to open us up to ships on the other side, Captain,” the tactical officer warned.

  “I know, but they’re over there and that corvette is nearly on top of us,” Tariq replied. “Carry out my orders, helm.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the pilot replied, smoothly rolling the ship’s port side to face the incoming pirate vessel. “I’m losing power, Captain. We’re down even more.”

  “Damn it,” Tariq growled, clenching a fist. “Try and go evasive,” he ordered. “But do your best to keep our engines on an angle somewhat…”

  “Away from the pirates,” the pilot finished, nodding. “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  “Ready, Captain,” the tactical officer replied. “Locked on.”

  “Fire.”

  Coherent energy beams lanced out from the Cavalier’s weapons, another pair of missiles and a flurry of metal following close behind. The corvette fired back, destroying both missiles, and vaporized a few of the metal rail gun slugs, but enough of them got through the counter fire.

  “I’ve got some shield flare on the enemy corvette,” one of the sensor techs piped up. “I’m showing some spotting on their shields. They’re turning away, rolling to present another shield facing.”

  As Tariq opened his mouth to reply, another hit rocked the ship. The ship didn’t lurch so much as shiver. “We’re taking fire on our weakened facing from that blasted gunboat, sir,” the sensor tech reported.

  “Fire on them,” he ordered. “Save the missiles though.”

  “Understood, sir.” Alys pressed a few commands and the corvette’s energy weapons and railguns filled space with racing death. The shots hit the gunboat and it exploded into an expanding ball of burning shrapnel. “Got him!”

  Tariq took a deep breath, as the fire against his ship slacked off for a few moments. He checked the sensor displays, seeing the furball of the starfighters as it moved like an amorphous blob around the battlespace. For the moment, there was a decent amount of space separating the bigger ships from the fighters, but that could change in a matter of seconds.

  “Move us away from this part of the battle,” Nazan ordered. “Bring us over within two thousand klicks from Eridain. We can try and cover one another.”

  “That might draw fire from those incoming cruisers, Captain,” Alys warned. “It turns two targets into one more tempting one.”

  He nodded. “I know, but the gunboats and the other corvettes will slowly chew us up if we try and do this alone. Helm, Nav, get us moving.”

  “Aye, sir!” the two officers chorused.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~

  Sokann twitched his antennae as he brought his Muon fighter on another attack run. Those damned manta ray fighters the locals were using were fast, maneuverable, armed and armored, and with those skeezzik shields they sported, they were very tough beetles to crack open.

  And they were fast. Unlike the Sepulcre’s, these things were only a few steps behind the Muons as far as speed and maneuverability. He and the remainder of his Zg’chiss squadron were able to stay ahead of them, out maneuver them, but only just. Their missiles were devilishly accurate but so far he and his pilots had been moving too quickly to get shot down.

  He and the five remaining pilots of Zg’chiss squadron were harassing some of the local fighters, trying to prevent them from getting a proper run up at any of Lord Verrik
oth’s or General Typhon’s ships. Every now and then one of the mantas would snap off a missile but he and his pilots were keeping them from delivering a proper, coordinated punch.

  “Lead, this is Kl’gurr,” his wingman called. “I’ve got a bead on one of those fighters. Rolling in for an attack run.”

  “Copy, Kl’gurr. I’ve got your wing.” Sokann banked his fighter and dove, following right behind and to port of Kl’gurr’s ship. The two egg-shaped ships pelted after the flatter local starfighter, and no matter where it tried to turn, they stayed right with it, their cannons blazing, lighting up the shields on the manta fighter.

  The pilot juked to the right, but Kl’gurr stuck to him like a burr, peppering the fighter with his guns. It was agonizing. The Muons were very lightly armed, meant for commerce raiding, not space superiority. The fighter was nibbling through the manta’s shields, but slowly. Every so often, the trio of ships had to dodge around other ships, other dogfights, as the furball moved and shifted, as gunships and starfighters pounded away at each other.

  “Getting nasty in here, Lead,” Kl’gurr noted. His voice was filled with hissing, though he wasn’t bothering to switch to the human standard tongue; he spoke in one of the zheen dialects they both knew.

  “Getting nasty?” Sokann riposted. “We lost almost half our ships in the first salvo. Right now we’re just barely holding on.”

  “Come on!” the other pilot growled, as he landed a few more hits on the dorsal side of the manta as it tried to climb above the plane of the ecliptic. Still, his shots pounded against the fighter’s shields. “How strong are those shields? And where can we get some?”

  “I don’t know, Kl’gurr,” Sokann replied, firing off a volley of his own, only two bolts actually landing on the fighter.

  The manta tried to dive, but Kl’gurr anticipated it, with Sokann following right along behind. Both fighters opened up and their shots pierced the shields, striking the aft end of the manta fighter. The energy blasts hammered through the fuselage, ruptured the fuel tanks and the engine tore the ship apart in a burst of flames, which were quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space.