“Gentlemen, the enemy has found us. Commander Matthews, Commander Pushkar, we’re counting on you to defend us.”
The dark-skinned man, Milan Pushkar, nodded. “Of course, ma’am. Providence squadron stands ready.” His eyes were filled with zealous fervor.
She nodded in approval. “I’m sure you will do all you can. But there is no escape,” she reminded them. “This is not a delaying action, for I doubt anything Beta has will be able to get here in time to help. You must destroy all who attack us, or at least drive them off.”
“Providence will succeed or die!” Pushkar declared, then ended the call.
Astrid nodded again and turned to her other squadron commander. “Commander?”
Matthews looked dubious. “Vice Chairman,” he said, his voice uncertain. “I am not so sure about this plan.”
“You are telling me that you do not have the moral authority within you?” she retorted hotly. “That fighting to defend our base against these interlopers is not a worthy goal?”
“I can read the IFF beacons on those ships as well as you can, Vice Chairman,” Matthews replied, now sounding angry. “Those are ships for Verrikoth.”
Astrid scoffed. “He is a pirate. He cannot challenge us.”
His lips quirked. “The fact that he brought four warships into our system, into this stars-bedamned system would say otherwise,” he said sardonically. “I ask you to reconsider.” He took a deep breath. “Moral issues aside, the F-322 is not designed to operate in this radiation-heavy environment. We won’t have a very long time to fight before the ships start to fail and we start dying.”
She could feel her blood beginning to boil. “Luckily for you and the cause, I do not have to heed your warnings of cowardice. And if I didn’t need you right now, I’d have you arrested for treason and shot. Now, I have given you an order. Will you obey it? Or am I to have you arrested?” How dare he speak to me in such a manner?
Astrid watched the man’s jaw work, as he reined in his temper. He was no coward, and they both knew that. She stayed quiet, knowing that he would do as he was ordered, especially since attackers were inbound. “I will do my duty,” the man replied, teeth grinding.
“Excellent. Now stop whining and get out there and stop them,” she said, waving a hand imperiously. Then she stabbed down on the control and cut the connection. His courage and patriotism had better hold up.
((--[][]--))
“Four minutes until we’re in range, Kapitan,” Djarok reported. It wasn’t information that V’ka’sith didn’t already have access to, but the reptile was nervous and displayed that giving out the information to the bridge at large. It was part of his job as the sensor officer. He saw something and then zoomed in his display to get a better view.
“Detecting multiple vessels close to the moon, close to the bulk cruiser,” Djarok said. “I’m seeing two cargo ships, and it looks like they’re coming up from the moon, moving to fly close to the cruiser.”
“Any signs of the starfighters they’re supposed to have?” V’ka’sith asked.
Djarok shook his head. “Nothing so far, Kapitan…” He paused. “Wait. No, there they are. Starfighters are launching from the bulk cruiser.”
“How many?”
The domak paused again. “Looks like eighteen. No, twenty. They’re moving in two groups, forming up into formations.”
“Launch our starfighters and gunboats,” V’ka’sith ordered. Three Sparhawks and two gunboats would hardly be able to fight off twenty of the bastards, but they could help with point defense. “They are to move out in advance of us, but not too far, I want to still be able to cover them from the incoming ships.”
“Understood,” the comms officer said, sending out the orders.
“One minute to range, Kapitan,” Grokk stated from tactical.
V’ka’sith nodded. “To the fighters or the bigger ships?”
“The fighters, Kapitan. An additional thirty seconds to the starships beyond.”
He thought about it for a long moment. “Very well. Guns, target the incoming fighters first, do what you can do break up their formation, and any coordinated strike. After that, shift fire. I don’t want any of those ships getting out of the star system.”
Grokk turned to look at him. “You think that they will get away, Kapitan?”
V’ka’sith hissed. “I don’t want to waste time with chasing them. Get them all now, Grokk. Do you understand?”
“No captures, Kapitan? Kills only?”
“You heard the Warlord’s orders,” the zheen said harshly. “And in this case, I completely agree. We don’t have the troops or crew to storm those ships or to bring them back. And I will surely not waste time effort or lives trying to trust the crews of those ships.” He turned away from the tactical station and back to his own feeds. “Carry out my orders.”
The fighters closed to within range of first Gawilghur’s and then the corvette’s guns, and then all hell broke loose. The warships opened fire with their forward weapons, which destroyed three of the incoming F-322s outright. The rest broke formation, though two of them snapped off missile shots toward the incoming fighters.
((--[][]--))
“Missiles, inbound!” Flyer Pirk screeched over the comms. He yanked his stick over and banked hard to the left, as his finger squeezed the trigger. Energy blasts fired from his cannons, but they went wild, hitting nothing. “Break!” he shouted, hoping that the rest of the flight would understand and obey.
Pirk had been on the flight roster for three months now, having only two weeks of training before being loaded up as the leader of Gawilghur’s starfighter contingent, his scores in the very brief training exercises he’d participated in back in Tyseus earned him that right. It was a dubious honor, as he was discovering, especially as he the Kapitan was throwing him and his small flight up against one that was no less than seven times larger. Fighting against enemies, as he was discovering, that had a lot more experience than he did.
The enemy starfighters broke formation and moved in. They flew like a swarm of stinging insects, flowing around and past the incoming attack wave, detaching six of their own to handle the Sparhawks and gunboats. Dodging and jinking, they flew right into the teeth of the light cruiser. Heavy fire came at them, and the human pilots Tor and Smythe gave their lives for the cause, blasted apart, their reflexes were just too slow.
Missiles raced forward towards the cruiser, whose point defense weaponry opened up, going from a focused spread to an almost random flurry of fire. Two missiles slipped past the point defense to explode against the cruiser’s shields, the energy from the blasts, turning them briefly opaque. A number of missiles were blasted by counterfire. By pairs, the starfighters dove at the flanks of the light cruiser, weaving back and forth on their strafing runs. Point defense lasers and rail guns fired back as more missiles slammed into the shields. Four metal slugs pounded the bottom aft end of one of the F-322s, tearing apart the engine and a second later the reactor bottle breached in a brilliant flash. Another pilot dropped a missile into the cruiser’s flank and then swerved into the beam of one of the turbolasers; his ship instantly evaporated. Two more were bunched too close together as they made their own strafing maneuver, peppering the cruiser with shots from their laser cannons. One of them received a glancing blow from a railgun slug, which damaged his control thrusters, sending his fighter into a left turn. He bumped his wingman, who was, in turn, knocked into an uncontrolled barrel roll and was picked off by the warship’s gunners. The first pilot tried to regain control, but a laser shot to the stern sent the F-322 slamming into Gawilghur’s shields in a brilliant explosion.
A half-dozen more missiles detonated against the light cruiser’s starboard shields, which collapsed under the strain, damage sparkling along the starboard hull. One of the starfighters evaded the cruiser’s return fire only to be blown apart by shots from Xekzik, covering her flank. The other F-322s scattered. They flew away from the cruiser, none of them on straight line
courses.
V’ka’sith noted the damage markers on the display, as the starboard shields glowed red, indicated failure. Well, near total failure with massive spotting, more like gaping holes in the coverage. The hull, thankfully, didn’t have any huge breaches, but it was definitely open to space in several places, eight by his count. But with the ship’s skin ripped open and the shields down, it meant that the radiation was now pouring into the hull. It also meant that any subsequent attacks on the starboard side would be much more painful.
“Roll ship,” he ordered, knowing the nimble starfighters would easily be able to compensate for the maneuver. “Forward guns, target that carrier. Let’s get this over with.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Grokk stated, hesitating. The counter ran down. “In range!”
“Fire!” he hissed, mandibles clacking loudly.
Volleys of coherent energy lanced out from the cruiser to the bulk carrier. Seven or eight hits were all that was required to rip through the carrier’s energy shields and then tear into the hull. Four hits struck the command deck, which was little more than the converted bridge from the modified civilian vessel. Secondary explosions burst through the forward section of the hull, and then the entire ship went dark.
“Yes!” V’ka’sith roared and the others on the bridge cheered.
“Kapitan, the starfighters are breaking off,” Djarok reported over the shouts on the bridge.
“Guns, target them,” the kapitan ordered.
“On it, Kapitan,” Grokk told him, pleased, his antennae swirling in circles.
V’ka’sith saw the ship’s weapons shift targets again swatting after a trio of the double-hulled starfighters that were moving off in a loose formation. He clicked his mandibles when he saw one of them take a glancing hit, while the others managed to evade. The damaged fighter went into an uncontrolled tumble as one of the elongated pyramidal sections of the fuselage sheared off, going out and away from the planet and its moons.
“Without shields, the radiation will cook that pilot in short order.” Then he caught the flashing icons showing shield failure on Gawilghur’s starboard side. A few keystrokes showed rising radiation levels in the outer sections of the ship, higher where the outer hull had sustained damage. He hissed again. “And its cooking us.”
“Helm, take us into the shadow of the moon.” V’ka’sith turned to the comms specialist. “Comms, have Xekzin move to continue covering our starboard side and the other two to cover our stern.” There were eight, no seven of those fighters still out there and they would be gunning for them. The engines were the most logical (and critical) target.
The ships answered the helm orders and quickly slid behind the moon, engines straining against momentum to brake. Once behind the moon, its lead-lined bulk between the flotilla and the star; radiation levels dropped by over thirty percent. Not completely and not even to safe levels, but to far less deadly levels. It was manageable, at least.
“Get damage control teams working on the shields,” V’ka’sith ordered tersely. “Sensors, where are those fighters? Where are ours?” He cursed himself for his forgetfulness.
“Two of the Sparhawks are down, and one of the gunboats, Zepk, is adrift. Xerit is engaging the remaining enemy craft.”
((--[][]--))
Pirk was hissing and clocking almost constantly, emitting an eerier hum from his thorax. Not that he noticed, of course, as sheer panic had a firm grip on his neural clusters. He kept randomly jinking his Sparkhawk around, each time the maneuver was punctuated by his terrified shriek announcing the direction he was about to go in. He would then go back to hissing and clicking for a few seconds and then repeat the process.
It had served him well in the battle so far. He’d evaded two cannon bursts and a missile strike that way, something his fellows couldn’t claim. Only one gunboat remained of the light attack force, and it had already lost its forward shields. Panic overtook Pirk in short order as he realized he would very shortly be alone out here. His vaunted combat training had not availed him, no; only unblemished fear kept him alive. An involuntary twitch of his finger on the trigger had scored him a kill on an enemy craft, but he’d not managed one consciously. It was all his petrified neural clusters could do to keep him alive.
The battlespace was considerably clearer now, only six of the twenty starfighters remained and their carrier vessel was spewing fire out of some of the massive breaches in the forward section. It was losing orbit, gravity drawing it ever closer to the moon’s surface.
Pirk didn’t much care about that right now. The panic was starting to subside, and he could feel the sanity returning. The enemy starfighters, all six of them, wait, no there were seven, were looping back around but not toward him. The flotilla had moved into the shadow of the moon to find shelter from the radiation and the enemy double-pyramid fighters were coming around for another attack.
Sucking in a long, trembling breath, Pirk shuffled around in his pilot’s couch, gripped his controls tightly and stomped down that fear as he felt it start to rise again. His fellows had died in this hot system, nothing more than target practice for these pirates. Gathering the torn scraps of his courage, he advanced the throttles and went after them.
((--[][]--))
Gloth was skipper of one of the Warlord Verrikoth’s fine gunboats, the Xerit, nimble war vessels capable of dealing pain to the Warlord’s enemies and he was honored to hold the post. But he hated the name. He always assumed that a xerit was a bump left on one’s skin under one’s scales when a sandfly managed to get under them and bite. It was no honorable name, capable of striking fear into the hearts of enemies. No, Xerit was a terrible name for a warship, even a zheen one.
The lizard-like Geckon hissed in his headbag, letting his long tongue tap his needle-sharp teeth. The life support device was large and uncomfortable, but with the atmo bottle connected to a tube on his belt, he had a little under forty-eight hours of breathable air and thus life support power in the gunboat could be redirected to the shields, where it would be much more useful. His two other crewmen, the human male Trarn and the long-necked amphibious Guura Troubanee, were both wearing head bags as well, though only the human complained. Something about the fur on his face, how it itched under the bag.
“What’s the status of the forward shields?” the Geckon demanded, his speech sounding much like Lord Verrikoth’s in the way he formed his sibilant S sounds.
The Guura looked over at him with a sour look. “I’m well aware of how much radiation we’re soaking up, Gloth,” he spat. “I’m working to restore shield coverage as fast as I can. There!” he said triumphantly. “I’ve rerouted function through secondary couplings. Forward shields are coming up to thirty percent.”
Gloth let out a sigh of relief. “Very well done.”
“They won’t hold there forever,” Troubanee warned, his large black eyes glinting in the light from the consoles. “That’s a secondary coupling. It isn’t meant to manage the amount of power that’s being pumped into it. We’ve got about two hours at most and then it will fail, and then nothing but a full replacement is going to get those shields back.”
“Understood,” Gloth replied. “Then we’ll do our best to stay away from the heaviest fighting. I see young Pirk has managed to calm himself down.” He glanced at one of the displays, seeing the last remaining Sparhawk race toward the last of the enemy starfighters.
“Should I alter course to go after him?” Trarn asked, looking up from the helm.
Gloth considered that for all of a second. “No,” he decided, shaking his head back and forth. “No,” he said again, his lips pulling back in a toothy smile as he saw the other sensor display. The bulk cruiser turned carrier was gaining speed, heading for the moon. It would slam into the surface about sixty kilometers from the spot where above the flotilla was holding position. It would be a spectacular wreck. But he’d spotted something else. “I spy two big boxy cargo ships on the ground on what looks like a landing platform on the surface. It’
s inside a big impact crater. That’s going to be our target. Get ready,” the Geckon ordered, shifting himself more comfortably on his couch. “And let’s take them out. No quarter!” he yelled, and the others echoed his sentiment.
Chapter 5
Astrid Markaasdottir paced the command center, tearing at her hair in frustration. Those incompetents had not held up their end as well as advertised. There was still a half dozen of the F-322s remaining, and they were harassing the enemy ships, but Astrid doubted they could succeed in driving them off.”
“Madam Vice Chair!” one of the techs cried, looking over at her and pointing at the display. “Shield of Argos is coming down!”
Astrid whirled and watched in mounting fury as the bulk cruiser lost orbit completely and slammed into the ground. They hadn’t been holding a high orbit, nor was the ship falling at a great amount of speed, so when the vessel hit, it crumpled, more flames coming from the sections that were formerly sealed. By some miracle, the reactor didn’t breach, but Astrid suspected it would once the control systems failed. It wasn’t a hardy system, requiring constant care and adjustment, so she knew it was only a matter of time, probably minutes.
“Get the freighters ready to move,” she ordered. “Maybe we can distract them and get clear.”
“One of the gunships is heading straight for the landing field,” the sensor watch called, a growing horror in his voice.
Astrid walked over and watched, helpless, as the sleek little vessel buzzed the landing deck, its dual laser cannons blazing. The two freighters, the last armed vessels here at Alpha, were parked and powered down… defenseless. The gunboat flew over top; its weapons punched holes in the freighters. Three members of the ground crews grabbed rifles and ran out onto the landing deck, wearing no other protective gear over their clothes than headbags. They would not survive long in vacuum; human bodies were not designed to live in vacuum. Most likely they were already feeling the cold, but they didn’t care. They rushed out into the open, firing their weapons at the now retreating enemy, but it was to little effect. The fusillade of bullets, what few that actually hit, were easily deflected by the gunboat’s shields.
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